A New Way to Remember
by holmesfreak1412
Summary: With a new identity and a wiped memory, Azula has been leading a happy life. That is until a series of circumstances brings her back to the Fire Nation Capital where she is forced to face the ghosts she has ran away from and a lover who is still running away from the past. For the Tyzula Advent Calendar 2015.
1. Sweet Sugarcakes

**Note: Written for Tyzula Advent Calendar 2015. Might be AU to Smoke and Shadows but definitely follows after The Search. This takes the what-if-Azula-got-a-new-face headcanon which I already previously used and had always wanted to go back to again.**

 **My personal goal is to update this everyday but if schoolwork, my job and extracurricular activities would keep me from doing so, I would still finish this. I am taking a risk and gladly doing so.**

…

.

 **A New Way to Remember**

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" _ **Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory**_ **.** _ **Instead forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future."**_

 _ **-Lewis B. Smedes**_

 _ **Part One**_

 _ **.**_

 _ **.**_

 **001 Sweet Sugar Cakes**

The girl wakes up with no past. She wakes up with the present a mystery. She wakes up unsure if she even has a future.

"Hey, you're awake!" A voice. Something wet on her forehead. Dark haired, amber-eyed figure with a cocked brow. Painted lips. She is familiar, she thinks. But the thought is gone before she could articulate it. She tries to place a name. She finds none.

Mumble. She thinks it comes from her mouth but she does not recognize it. The voice too squeaky. The voice too uncultured. She moves her fingers, her too brown limbs—none of which feels like her own. She cracks her lips open once more. No words come out. She does not know what to say.

 _Likes waves crashing on the sand…_

Nothing.

… _gives you a clean slate._

 _Who am I?_

"Are you okay?"

….

Kazumi's life starts at sixteen, in a world torn in a civil war, where a reputed idiot sits on the throne and a worse idiot tries to take over. Kazumi's life starts when the girl who called herself Riko asks for a name and it is somehow easy for her to make it up, along with stories of nonexistent childhood when she learned the skills for combat so that the girl would no longer ask questions on how she could beat grown men with one arm. Kazumi becomes a bandit to live and survive, stealing from misers and the corrupt, taking from the rich the money that the poor earned. Kazumi becomes a reluctant hero to impoverished peasants, one of the masked nice young women who left bread for the hungry. Riko joins enthusiastically because her mother died when she was young too, killed by a world war that Kazumi does not even remember.

Sakura joins much later and in every moment that she brushes her own adversaries off with the nonchalance that is contrast of Riko's exuberance and Kazumi's thrill, there is a dull pain that throbs in Kazumi's heart that she pushes down, that she swallows. A longing for something that she is not sure she understands.

…

.

"You gave her more than usual." The girl that the village of Hanabi knows as Kazumi remarks, eyebrows raised in surprise. Sakura shrugs, as cold and beautiful as her namesake. They sit with their earnings laid on the wooden table, a score they got with the lucky chance of incompetent bodyguards and their coward of a charge. Riko has gone to town to leave their tokens to the less fortunate. Not signed, because the exuberant girl decided for the fun of incognito.

"You must have noticed that her breathing has gone worse." The newer addition to their team explains, fingers drumming. She stares after where the old woman who just exited, mouth set into a thin line. "Staying here would not be good for her. Keeping her fed is the least I can do."

The coal factory. The fumes it releases. And more importantly, the guards that stand by the high gates of the city. Because apparently, they say they work for the Fire Lord, a man driven to improve industry, at the expense of lives. Riko tells stories of how Caldera is flourished and wealthy, how its citizens must have been the most beautiful people in the world. Kazumi does not know. She does not really know much.

But this Fire Lord must have been an idiot then, if he could sacrifice the health of his constituents for extravagant living. Old Sae is the latest of his victims, the old woman who once took them in when it was snowing and Riko and her were weak and hungry. Who rescued Sakura from a life that would have forced her to her knees to please lecherous, old, men. "Your mother died like that too, didn't she?"

A cool nod is her only answer and there is an uncomfortable silence until Riko comes in with a gust of cold air and suppressed excitement- an announcement that someone is looking for them.

…

.

"The plan. We must go with the plan."

Caldera. The city of dreams. It is better than the product of Riko's overactive imagination, more deceiving than the one that is subject to Sakura's contempt. In here stands the Fire Nation Palace, the place where the Fire Lord that made them slaves to their own town resides. It looms tall and menacing over the metropolis. Something in Kazumi flutters when she stares. She thinks it is appreciation, excitement. She thinks it is wonder, the suspense of being in the most guarded place in their nation.

 _What is wrong with that child?_

"Not bad." Sakura murmurs beside her. It takes a lot to impress her. "Not bad at all."

 _Of course..._

 _I'm the Princess._

"Don't forget the plan." Kazumi reminds them, nodding. She looks at her two companions and for a moment, there seems to be two people she never saw before in their place. Braids. Buns. But they vanish like everything else seems to do. "Old Sae needs to stay in that hospital until she is well, right?"

…

The Fire Lord's bodyguards are far from incompetent.

Green robes, painted faces. Of course, she knows they would be there. That is part of the plan. But she did not foresee that they would have quite a fight in their hands. The objective has been accomplished. All they need to do is hand the item their employer wants—

"Wow. Kazumi. They sure are as good as we were warned!"

-and fulfill their part of the deal when he promised to ensure Old Sae's medication.

They are fast, she thinks as she leaps through barrels and pushcarts. A step behind, Sakura and Riko follow. She nods once. Both answer with a crane of their head. Wordless communication. They have stolen so much loot together, it is almost unnecessary. The plan. Don't forget the plan.

Riko leaps to the right. Sakura turns to the left. From the corner of her eye, she sees her pursuers split up as the faster one that tumbles and cartwheels while running, tails after her. The leader. She knows one when she can see one. Impressive too. But... _Let's see how good you guys are._ She draws a penknife, turns the blade.

She slips through a narrow walkway, jumping through the windowsills and landing on a flat roof. In full speed, she sprints over the houses, one eye watching as the enforcer slowly vanishes from her sight. Smirking, she slowed slightly and…

"Gotcha." A high-pitched voice chirps from above and she is down.

Three quick jabs on her back. Braided brown hair and a rather guilty-looking petite girl her age towering over her fallen form. The gravel against her face hurts as she glares at the pensive, pale face. A scene briefly flashes in her mind, anger a predominant emotion. And then like everything that confuses her, it is gone.

"It's over." The green-garbed monkey calls, sitting before her. Forcefully she turns Kazumi's head on the other side, all the while her mouth split into that annoying grin. In cuffs are Riko and Sakura with two other clowns dragging them forward, looking regretful.

The plan.

Don't forget the plan.

She is searched, humiliated by girls with fans and makeup. "Here it is!" the girl in braids, apparently indeed the leader for some inexplicable reason, proclaims. Triumphant. And the trade banking scroll they almost bagged away is back on the hands of stupid Capital people. "You're good." The girl comments, running her hand on Kazumi's chin. The bandit does not flinch. She could not. _Chi-blocking._ She does not know how she knows.

"But we're better. Oh, my bad. I haven't introduced ourselves. We are the Kyoushi Warriors and we don't really appreciate crime in our neighbourhood, if you get what I mean." She finishes and then looks at her cohorts, all of which look like her. _Matched set._ She wonders how they could bear it, being akin to having no name. "Take them to the Capital Prison. I have something planned for them."

…

.

" _Recreation program?"_

" _Yes. That is the plan, ladies."_

…

.

"Hey there, you're awake."

 _Hey there, sweet sugar cakes._

Kazumi is not chained, to her surprise. But prison looks very much like the way she imagined it would be—brick walls and bars. A torch on the side. A bed that is nailed to the floor. As expected too, she is kept away from her accomplices, left staring at the _Kyoushi Warrior_ that actually looks kind of normal without the face paint.

Pretty too. Just ignore the stupid, exultant smile.

"My name is Ty Lee. I am second in command of Kyoushi Warriors, a joint faction that spans both Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation. But I head Fire Nation's Security Team. Been doing it for a couple of years, since Zuko took command."

 _Zuko._

 _The Fire Lord._

"What's your name?"

Stare. The plan.

"Not very talkative, aren't we?"

Tight lip. Don't forget the plan.

"I can offer you a deal."

"I'm listening." She finally says.

Ty Lee smiles. "I saw how you did back there. You were good. Very good. In fact, I was impressed."

Unperturbed. The plan. Never forget the plan.

"I am thinking of recruiting you to our group. The security group. That kind of stealth is what we are looking for. You just need some training, some polishing. We need your skills, you see, especially at these rough times. The past couple of years have been pretty hard on us Fire Nationals, hasn't it?"

 _You have no idea._ "Why are you offering me this?"

"It's part of Fire Lord Zuko's administration. The Recreation Program. Everyone is of course capable of great good and evil. I don't know your story. I only saw what you did there. But everyone deserves a shot of redemption, right?" There is an inexplicable note of sadness that crosses Ty Lee's eyes. Redemption. Hah! Kazumi frowns.

"How do you know you should trust me?"

"I don't." The famous, overused line. "I just do."

Kazumi waits for the right moment for the comfortable quietude to settle in. She pretends to think. She pretends to mull over her own distrust.

Then she says, all according to plan: "Kazumi." She sighs. "The name is Kazumi."

Ty Lee's smile is bright and sickeningly sweet. Kazumi wants to puke. "Nice to meet you."

…

.

"Sweet sugar cakes?" Sakura scoffs. She looks odd in green, almost ridiculous while Riko blended right into it. Thankfully, they were recruited into the division where they don't have to dip their faces into paint. The backup squad that would work in the shadows.

"Seriously?" Her stoic friend is still regarding the white confection with suspicion. Beside her, Ty Lee who insisted on being with them in their initiation party, giggles.

"It is an all time favourite." She says. Her eyes turn back to Kazumi, for what she notices as the tenth time of the night. "You should try it too Kazumi."

"Hn." She raises her eyebrow at Riko.

The girl shrugs. "You know I am not really fan of sweets." She dips her hands to her plate of fried shrimps once more. Seafood was a rarity back in Hanabi.

"Try it!" Ty Lee implores. "It's an order." The commander assumes mock authority when she hesitated.

She puts it in her lips. Chew. Taste.

"Not bad." She says. And Ty Lee beams. For some reason, this makes Kasumi uneasy. "Not bad at all."

…

 **.**

 **(TBC)**

 **Alright, if it is not already obvious why Azula is tagged as a main character: feel free to sue me. Otherwise, yes, endgame is TyZula. Anyway, enjoy and see you guys soon (hopefully tomorrow).**


	2. Ice Sculptures

**.**

 **002 Ice Sculpture**

The three rookies are brilliant, in various ways that painfully reminds Ty Lee of a friendship long gone. Ty Lee thinks that she is right in taking them in and vouching for them. The three outsiders with unknown past, who stole a trading scroll that would have given them access to supplies in another town. It was a well executed grand theft auto, the almost perfect crime that they would have gotten away with but the Kyoushi Warriors she personally trained are the best at what they do. They were just a little better.

But Zuko is worried. Understandably. Only a few knows that the nation is in a brink of a civil war, collapsing in its own. In a few years, her old friend has aged twenty. "Are you certain they could be trusted?" he warily inquired during her briefing about new recruits.

"Of course I am not." She shrugs. "But worry not Zuko, I am watching them."

"Hm." Zuko looks unconvinced, his good eye squinting in apparent skepticism. She thanks whatever providence that existed for her for the first time that Mai is nowhere near, her bestfriend being the devil's advocate in their relationship. "Are you sure they are not working for someone? You know how it is…"

"I'll take care of them, Zuko. I promise." Ty Lee's tone is dismissive, not wanting to hear about her leader's paranoia of an organized group attempting to overtake him again. She shifts from one foot to another, makes sure she gives him her best smile. "They are getting pretty good in training too, you know. Those three will definitely make great bodyguards."

"I guess you are really pushing for them to get… indoctrinated."

"They have minds of their own. They are very smart. I am sure they would see the best in being in the side of good even without me forcing them."

"Just make sure…"

"Yeah." Ty Lee smiles in reassurance, salutes. "I will make sure they won't cause trouble."

…

.

"Are you sure this is your first time riding a mongoose dragon?"

There is something familiar, something nostalgic about the way that Kazumi reined the majestic beast. So regal. So poised. Off somewhere around the field, even the normally calm and composed Sakura is struggling. The nice and energetic Riko is faring better but the apparent leader's expertise is quite undeniable.

She bends over to rub the animal's head, absently stroking as she frowned. "Hn." She muttered, like the rather taciturn girl always did. She pulls the reins without answering. _Slap._ And runs another lap around the ranch.

"So Kazumi… by any chance, she is not a Firebender, isn't she?"

She has the posture, the smooth moves that is like prerequisite for every one that could employ the pyrokinetic fighting style Ty Lee has come to know so well. It makes her heart beat fast. It makes her remember unwanted memories, of a chance she lost, of the one regret that she can never seem to correct. Female firebenders are among the rarest.

"If she is, she never told us." Riko is good with blades. Not in the same caliber as Mai but decent enough. The pleasant girl whistles as she goes through each sharp weapon, her appreciation undisguised. "She is a pretty good fighter without it anyway."

"How long have you known her?"

"Quite a while. Four years, I guess?"

"Have you always been like you know, been robbing merchants?"

"We've been bandits for the longest time." Ty Lee is surprised at how openly she divulged that information. "I am sure you know about us already." Riko reasons easily and goes back to her work.

Sakura is a humourless martial artist who does not accept defeat well. "I can give you chi-blocking lessons." Ty Lee suggests, offering her hand to her fallen sparring partner. It was a great match, she can give her that. "It's pretty useful, particularly against people with bending."

"I survived well with my own style." She states coldly, distrustful and menacing. She looks at the proffered hand disdainfully and Ty Lee contemplates on leaving her there, for punishment. Her eyes are gold, slightly darker than Azula—Zuko's are. Ty Lee wonders if she is some nobleman's bastard child. There never is a shortage for those.

Kazumi, on the other hand is just exceptional at everything.

"A genius of unprecedented significance." One of the older soldiers gushes, watching as Kazumi leaped, tumbled and wielded dual swords in a dance so graceful it makes Ty Lee green with envy. It is not the first time she hears those words. It is not the first time she is dismissed by such genius with self-entitled conceit. The significance is not unprecedented. Why does anyone keep on pretending like Azula-?

 _Stop._

 _Don't go there._

 _Ty Lee…_

-never existed?

The trio treats her and their fellow soldiers with varying degrees of coldness. Even Riko's smile is too fake, too uncomfortable. The Ice Sculptures, they are called. Beautiful in the eyes but too cold that it burns to the touch. Riko with her biracial looks, the kind of beauty that made Ty Lee and her many sisters irresistible. Sakura is the one with the aristocratic face. While Kazumi, plain with her brown hair and brown, intimidating eyes as she is, is enshrouded with an air of mystery and intrigue that Ty Lee for some reason cannot help but be drawn to.

"Once the effects wear off, you would feel the most flexible than you have ever been in your life."

"How do you know about this?" Sakura is still sprawled on the dojo floor as Kazumi sits calmly before her.

"I just do." She says. Ty Lee can detect uncertainty from her normally high and mighty tone.

…

.

"I saw her."

"Who?"

Zuko hesitates. "The one named Kazumi. Brown hair. Ponytail. Scary eyes."

"And?"

"I just have this feeling…"

"I know."

Zuko's good eye widens. "Really?"

Silence.

"But that is impossible, Zuko."

Kazumi could not be spy, isn't she?

Zuko does not say anything. He looks at her with sad eyes, lips tight. Ty Lee does not understand and he does not explain.

He does not really say much these past couple of days.

…

.

"Sakura and Riko…" They are alone, the dojo vacated. These are the first words uttered in the flurry of punches, blocks and kicks. Kazumi is very careful, _too careful_ of Ty Lee's jabs. And she effectively dodges every single one of them. Orthodox, she thinks. As if she went through rigorous training with masters. Very much unlike the frenzied, untrained style Sakura uses. But Kazumi seems to work with instinct. "… they are a couple aren't they?"

That one punch is too strong for the almost-friendly sparring match.

Ty Lee lands on her behind, protests. "Hey!" She groans as she sits up, rubbing her backside. "What is that for?"

"If you are as good as you keep bragging you are, you would have seen it coming." Kazumi's tone is never kind with her, with anyone except her friends. But she is particularly hostile now, her brown eyes burning with intensity. Ty Lee thinks that had she been a lesser woman when princesses ordered her around and she could do nothing but timidly follow, the way she was all those years ago, she would have faltered.

"What makes you so upset anyway?" Ty Lee makes a show of stretching her limbs, pouts. "So what if your two good friends are a couple? They're happy, aren't they?"

"That's none of your business."

"Unless, you are in love with one of them, that is."

No answer. A telltale lead ball drops.

Ty Lee makes a gasping, horrified sound. "Are you?"

"So what if I am?"

The aggressive confession leaves a bitter taste on Ty Lee's mouth for some reason. Kazumi's eyes are fixed on her, waiting for an answer. Ty Lee's breath is taken away and her facial muscles feel numb. she has not felt tongue tied like this... ever since… ever since…

 _This is nothing._

 _This… does not mean anything._

"I just—"

"It's none of your business." She repeats. And then Kazumi walks away.

…

.

Ty Lee thinks, as she watches the three eat together for lunch that she would like to melt the ice someday.

The fire of betrayal burned her first friendship. Azula is long gone. And Mai is probably never coming back.

But this one, this three that is the personification of what theirs could have been, Ty Lee would like to keep.

But Ice Sculptures only last one season. And the ice, the burning cold only melts once it has passed.

Ty Lee does not think of this just yet.

…

.

 **(TBC)**


	3. Peppermint Tea

**003 Peppermint Tea**

"You don't look so good Kazumi." Stupid monkey leader remarks during the morning warm-ups, gray, protuberant orbs eyeing her up and down. Kazumi does not appreciate the inquisitive gaze, the sidelong, maybe-appreciative looks that her supposed commander is constantly giving her.

It makes the rather attractive woman—with her pretty face and lean, muscled body- harder to ignore.

Her disinterest in men baffles her. And it scared her when she had found herself thinking of mischievous Riko more and more than is appropriate for a good friend. She does not remember being like this. But it feels so right, oh so right. Even when Riko was clearly more enamored of Sakura, she did not stop. Even when Ty Lee is clearly sending her signs, she does not stop.

"Commander has a huge crush on you." Riko herself had noticed because contrary to what she let people think, she is the shrewdest one of them all. She swung her legs on the bed Sakura and she shared, the playful, teasing glint in her eyes clear in the candlelight. "I mean, she's always looking at you weird as though she just wants to ravish you right there."

"Hm."

"Why don't you give it a try? Could be fun."

"She might be planning something."

Riko had snorted. "Right. To seduce you. I know how lesbians look at a girl, Kazumi. I have been one for the longest time." Grin. "You are one too, aren't you?"

Of course, Riko had never noticed.

"She probably ate a bad sweet sugar cake last night." Riko tells Ty Lee, feigning enough worry in her voice. Kazumi lets her. Because that is the plan. _Don't forget about the plan._ "She's been complaining about stomach pains since last night. She probably would not be able to participate much in training."

"Is that true, Kazumi?" Ty Lee's worried tone is surely fake, contrived. Right? Right? She is a stranger. Right? Right? "I can have the servants prepare tea for you for breakfast."

"I'm okay." Weak tone. Slight wheezing. She contorts her face for good measure. She does not remember ever being sick. But she remembers being a decent enough actress.

"You know what, I'll let you skip the drill. Get a rest. I'll send tea for lunch." Ty Lee puts her hand on her shoulder and Kazumi tries hard, so hard not to flinch away. Ty Lee smiles. "You have been working so hard, Kazumi. You deserve a break."

Thankfully, Ty Lee breaks away and goes to check on the other trainees. From the corner of her eye, Riko winks. Kazumi sighs in relief.

She is not sure why.

…

.

"I heard you and Riko talking earlier."

"Hm?"

"Don't."

"What are you talking about?"

"The plan, Kazumi. Remember the plan." Sakura looks hard on her. "Remember that we are not captured here by accident."

 _The plan. Remember the plan._

 _Try to fight back while they are capturing you._

"I know. I haven't forgotten."

…

.

" _The downpayment is…" The man had paused, ever the businessman. They never saw him around before. But he was trouble, they could tell. The type that they should not mess around with. "… I'm taking the old lady to the best hospital in Kasai."_

" _That is called hostage taking here in my town." Kazumi retorted. "Try again."_

…

.

The Fire Lord's office does not contain the prize.

She expected it. Of course, it would not be. Such important thing would be safely stuck in someone's person, a waistband or a secret dress pocket. So that only left them with Plan B, to get it from the Fire Lord himself.

It would make the other mission easier that way in any case.

She takes one last look on the desk, the exquisite secretaire painstakingly carved into patterns that symbolized Fire Nation. Riko kept telling stories about a war she has no memories of. How it spanned a century. How their nation almost won. Riko's mother died in a factory accident. Their loss, Fire Lord Zuko's surrender to the Avatar… Kazumi thought that even though Riko did not really voice her feelings about it, this subordination, the show of weakness made her mother's death senseless.

Sakura… Her father left them even before she was born. The bastard of a nobleman. It is clear at first glance. The greed of such men who could not keep their hands to themselves and yet did not even have the guts to support the seed they planted.

Kazumi wonders if the parents she does not remember died in war too.

The Fire Lord's family is a beautiful one. A father with his hand on his son's shoulder. A mother sitting with a daughter who smiled, unknowing of the rigors outside their happy royal bubble. It made her freeze with an irrational anger, grit her teeth as she held the framed portrait. Here is the royal family, posing for paintings while the rest of the land they ruled bred orphans and broken families. Here is the royal family looking so darn perfect, while Riko ate scraps, Sakura was almost prostituted and Kazumi just woke one day having no idea who she was.

Here is the royal family with the whole library of family of history at their disposal while Kazumi was left with nothing.

Here is the royal family…

… _lucky to be born._

… _born lucky._

 _I love you._

 _I always have._

Footsteps coming. Echoes in the hallway. Kazumi straightens, makes sure she leaves no trace of her presence.

She puts the portrait down.

She is not sure why she wants to burn it so badly.

…

.

She reaches the palace gardens on the way back to the barracks.

She passes by who she immediately recognizes the woman in the painting, slightly older but looking as beautiful as she did on the old image. She looks up from the quacking turtleducks. Kazumi catches her eye for a brief second. Slumped shoulders. A sad image. She wonders why. Doesn't she have a perfect, little family? Queen of the nation. Mother of the all powerful Fire Lord.

She feels golden eyes train and fix on her as she walks away. She hears a wistfully distant voice of an apology, of an unacknowledged regret.

 _I'm sorry._

 _I'm sorry I didn't love you enough._

There was a little girl in the portrait too, prim and proper, like she had no chance to be.

But Kazumi had heard nothing about a princess. 

…

"Peppermint tea?" She stares aghast at the tea leaves, the note stuck under the cup. Messy scrawl of symbols. Ty Lee's signature does not look like the stamp of the Fire Lord's chief of staff. The throne is led by an idiot. The army is headed by a child. No wonder, Fire Nation is at odds with its citizens, governed as it is by headless stinkworms.

"Good for the stomachaches." Riko confirms, chuckling merrily. She slaps her shoulder, pushes. Kazumi winces and rolls her eyes. "She got it bad, Kazumi. Maybe you should give her a chance."

Sakura is eyeing both of them, carefully critical of whatever she will say next.

Kazumi sighs. "Remember the plan, Riko." She admonishes. "We are not here for romance."

"Too bad." Riko shrugs, mocking and sarcastic. Riko does not like Ty Lee, she could tell. The animosity is there. "I think she would have been a good match for you."

Kazumi thinks so too, despite her friend's jesting, ironic approach at it. Ty Lee is not bad. Not bad at all.

But some things are just not meant to be.

 **(TBC)**


	4. Frozen Fire

**004 Frozen Fire**

Ty Lee is sure that she is getting closer into cracking that iceberg. The piercing chocolate eyes bore on her, beautifully intimidating in its sharpness. Ty Lee finds that it is not an effort to hold the tantalizing gaze, to drown into the promise of this quaint, very sexual attraction. Sakura and Riko sneaks away from time to time, like how she did once. Kazumi, stonefaced as she studiously goes through drills every single day without fail does not betray anything.

"You sound like a Firebender. Rising with the sun and all." Because Ty Lee would only be a morning person if morning starts at noon. But she sees Kazumi jog around every morning, taut stomach contracting at her heaving efforts. Oh how Ty Lee longs to run her fingers on that sweaty skin.

"Being a nonbender is not an excuse to slack off." She just wishes that the girl would not be so irate the whole time.

Ty Lee just wishes she does not sound like Azula most of the time.

Kazumi talks to her today, without mustering a mocking glare. She stands in her green training fishnet suit, hands on hips. She looks more exquisite than the classically beautiful Sakura. She looks more stunning than the pretty, cutie Riko.

"As the recon squad, what do we actually do?"

Her tone is direct, sangfroid, no-nonsense. No roundabouts. Straight to the point. Azula…

… had been like that once.

Ty Lee quirks her lips. "You follow the escort squad around whenever the Fire Lord needs to tour around the Nation on land. Of course, you guys need to be out of sight and be specialized to both the long distance and close quarter combat styles. Make sure no assailants get close."

"Assassinations are normal then?"

"Alarmingly, it is." Ty Lee smiles. She has learned how to, even in the most uncomfortable questions. "Nothing my security team cannot handle though."

Of course, Kazumi avoided her like plague for the rest of the day but Ty Lee thinks that the fact that she approached her over having any of her cronies ask is testament enough to one step closer taken.

…

.

Ursa becomes the second surprise of the day.

"I want to talk to you about something." The woman says, prim and proper as how she remembered her during their childhood, the happy times when all she worried about was how to keep the princess she called her bestfriend out of boredom with the games that she would suggest. With the pranks that she would be conspirator of. Four years and Ty Lee had yet to really associate with the other princess that she used to admire and idolize so much. The resemblance had been painful then. Ursa and her daughter were more alike than anyone cared to admit.

The pretext is painful now. Acting as though she does not blame her for losing Azula. For replacing her. Forever.

 _But it is her fault too, right?_

Because Ty Lee tried so hard to replace Azula too.

And it does not seem like she could.

"Anything, your Highness." Her uneasy answer. Cold. Detached. She shifts from one foot to another, subconsciously willing for something, anything to happen to stop this.

"Tell me things about my daughter." Desperate. Sad. Tremulous. Ursa sounds like she would burst into tears at any moment. "Tell me things about Azula."

The sudden request takes Ty Lee by storm, the fire that she had long ignored igniting once more. She had successfully avoided thinking about Azula for years, had danced around the broken shards of her memories. And yet in the past few days… "I—"

And yet in the past few days…

She just cannot help but think of her very first love again.

"I know this takes you by surprise." Ursa's voice. So soft. So regretful. Why is she so sad? Why is she so wistful about all of this? It had been much easier to hate her back then. "I know how much it pains you. You were once… close. Very close. You were bestfriends."

 _Best friends._

 _Best friends._

Of course…

No one knew.

"I was in love with her." She cuts off, too briskly, too hasty. She tries in vain to keep the reigns in but she finds that she cannot when she laughs bitterly. "I still am, I suppose."

"How—" Ursa's eyes are wide.

"Not many know. It's okay. Judge me, for all I care." Ty Lee sinks back to herself, eyes staring distantly. "It is a hot and cold relationship. I hated and loved her at the same time. When I lost her, love is all that remains. Funny isn't it? But it's true. Forgiveness comes a little too late most times. But you did not come to me to hear about my regrets, didn't you? You want to hear about Azula? I'll give you what you want."

She does not mean to sound angry.

But she is.

She is.

 _Why do you suddenly care now?_

She clenches her fists. "Azula was a monster…"

Eyes downcast. The memories come unbidden, forceful. It becomes an ocean pulled by destructive waves and she is swept along with it, helplessly drowning.

"A monster we all helped create."

….

.

Ty Lee left Ursa in tears. The weep of a mother longing for a child she never raised.

Ursa left Ty Lee confused. The questions of a lover who could not ask, who could not clarify on things she know would pain her the most.

"I won't blame her."

"I'm sorry?"

"I won't blame her if she decided to forget too."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you know?" Ursa's heartwrenching sobs makes any word she might have uttered incomprehensible.

…

.

"You're crying."

Sniffles. She looks up. "I'm not." Defiant, Ty Lee blows her nose. "I'm okay."

Kazumi, her inferior, her soldier does not say anything.

But in the barracks late at night as her commander wept and the moon shines uninterrupted, she stays this time. Her silence becomes comfort and Ty Lee could almost believe-

…

.

"We have interrogated the suspect." Ty Lee reports to the seemingly distracted Zuko. He sits regally, straight backed on the throne that no longer burned. The servants had all seen it bathed in blue, all saw the disturbed teenage girl seated on the throne she ended up detesting. it was only on occasion that Ty Lee remembered the memories she only heard about. Zuko had done a good job redecorating.

But Azula's existence is like a fire that had been frozen for so long. Perhaps, Ty Lee could never really run away. Perhaps, it was not something that Ty Lee could ever escape from.

"We did not really find anything."

Like the flames of the uprising that they cannot keep frozen forever. The immense dissatisfaction of the noble classes about Zuko's rule is solidifying into a threat that could not be ignored, Another assassination attempt. They are getting less predictable as time went by. Ty Lee does not think she would be able to handle it on the long run. Ty Lee does not think she would be able to protect the only royal that mattered to her at this point.

"I see." Zuko acknowledges with a grave nod. He looks at her, eyes dark. "I did not really expect much."

"But of course, we are increasing our forces. That should count right, Zuko?" Silver lining. In a palace ridden with daily pessimisms, Ty Lee has to be the one who sees the bright side in something. Mai is gone. Azula is gone. And she, dumb, little airheaded Ty Lee has to keep things running most times.

Nod. Zuko steeples his finger. "How's your new recruits?"

"They're doing fine. They were skillful. Intuitive. It was a pleasure to train them."

Zuko's face is unreadable. "Kazumi?"

Ty Lee pauses.

Wordless understanding passes between them.

"Zuko…" She finally begins, after taking a deep breath. "What happened _that day?_ "

It is the first time she asked.

 **(TBC)**


	5. Mittens

**005 Mittens**

" _Accomplish this mission…_

"… _and you can free your town."_

….

.

"Where would you place the one thing that is the most important to you?"

Riko cocks her head sideways, as they sit together in a compressed circle. Fire Nation's climate has never entertained the idea of white holidays, as far as Kazumi had seen so far in the four years that she remembers in the desolate, volcanic island. And yet they woke at the sight of icicles suspended on the roof and postponed their drills because of the wintry chill. Ty Lee had distributed mittens earlier that day. Riko had volunteered to make everyone hot chocolate.

Said cups of hot chocolate is being enjoyed now as the soldiers cozy in their rooms and Kazumi goes through the plan one more time.

"The only way we can get close to our objective is to kill two birds with one stone." Kazumi crosses her legs, craning her neck from side to side. She flexes her arms, her fingers, stretches her legs. Fidgety. Pretty cold. "I'll have the chance during the Fire Lord's trip to the South Pole next week."

"What was it for?"

"A diplomatic trip." With someone they call the Avatar. Who that man everyone seemed to be so reverent about, Kazumi does not have an ounce of an idea.

"The 'Era of Peace' really changed a lot for the Capital, didn't it?" Riko sips from her cup, looking thoughtful. "I remember when _we_ conquered Ba Sing Se. There was a huge celebration back in town. Everyone made a giant statue of the Princess that day. It was awesome."

The war. The promise of industrialism for the world. The island of Hanabi had been the main source of coal, of fuel. They had been rewarded lavishly in those glory days. Riko did not try to be secretive about what she felt for Zuko.

"What happened to her anyway?" Sakura speaks for the first time, shifting slightly. She sits closely to her girlfriend, leaning her head towards the girl.

Riko raises an eyebrow. "To who?"

"The Princess."

Kazumi turns her head.

That must be the… little girl in the painting?

And she kind of remembers the name. The one Ty Lee had been unintelligibly crying about the previous night.

"No one knows. Must be in prison. That is what he does. Even to his family members. Did you know that the former Fire Lord was locked just a few blocks away? My mum used to fancy him." Riko rolls her eyes. She puts down her cup, blows air to her mitten-covered hands. "He should be careful when he turns his back, you know."

She smirks at Kazumi.

"I wonder when we would be properly introduced to him."

….

.

Ty Lee's mittens are red ones patterned with gold, expensively and delicately embroidered with symbols that Kazumi immediately recognized are like the ones that adorned the desk in the Fire Lord's office. The Royal crest, exquisite and grand. Kazumi does not know why she is staring, why her attention is so riveted in that pair of gloves but she does anyway and Ty Lee catches on.

"It's a gift from a friend." Her bright grin is a stark contrast to the increasingly bleak skies. Ty Lee bundled up compared to her usually light choice of attire (which distantly reminded Kazumi of a circus performer) still looks pretty attractive somewhat. "It's the first time I made use of it. I think she did it all to spite me. It never snows in Fire Nation, you see."

"But we're looking at one now, it seems. Perhaps, she is not that bad. She certainly had the foresight." Kazumi has no idea why in the world had she decided to keep the inane conversation going. But Sakura and Riko had abandoned her yet again and Ty Lee is not that bad. Not at all. She is certainly better than the prospect of doing fifty curl ups all over again. "Your friend is a royal?"

"Princess Azula, to be exact…" Kazumi pretends to understand. Twice she heard that name mentioned today. She does not recognize it.

Ty Lee is looking at her… expectantly.

"What happened to her anyway?" This… this is a safe question.

She is kind of curious too.

What happened to the perfect, smiling little girl with the perfect, smiling family?

What happened to the girl that Ty Lee cried so much about?

Because for sure, everyone must be wondering about the same thing.

Ty Lee's expression turns sad. "I don't know." is her vague answer. She shrugs, pulls on the cloth around her hands. 'No one knows, I guess."

…

Fire Lord Zuko's portrait is of a man appeared to be freed of chains, multicoloured flames blaring on his hands. A pair of dragons—red and blue twirled around above his head. The symbols of four nations converged into one that Kazumi had never seen before. The expression on his face was stern, his lips turned into what she could perceive as a sad smile. Kazumi is drawn on the look of his handsome face, the many things that she could somehow read from that single form of rehearsed countenance.

He was the happy, wide-eyed child in the family portrait. The one with the father he later imprisoned like an animal. The one with the sister even a close friend did not know the fate of. The one with the mother who looked perpetually in grief.

 _Here is the royal family…_

Perhaps they are not so perfect after all.

Kazumi's eyes trailed to the red scar on his face.

…

.

" _Make sure he will suffer._

" _Make sure everyone would know he suffered."_

…

 _._

"Can't use poison, can't we?"

"That guy insists we use the sword he gave us. He needed his head. It would be gross, I'm sure." Exasperated, Kazumi runs her fingers through her brown locks. "Some kind of stupid message."

"You would have to take off that mitten Ty Lee gave you then." Riko, of course had to be the evil one in the terrible trio. "Wouldn't want to get it dirty, would we?"

She shakes her head, while snorting.

…

.

"You guys would take the other airship." Ty Lee rounds up the instructions, face made up and dressed again like the first time she saw her. It makes Kazumi stare a little too long, makes her think of things that vanish when she tries to see more. Her heart speeds up when Ty Lee gets close but the tension between, the sexual charge does not affect their jobs. The commander moves away all too soon, ready to join her elite bodyguard squad that would board the other ship. _Be discreet._ It could go both ways.

"You know…" Sakura suddenly appears beside her, rubbing her palms on her skirt. She looks pretty good in green. She looks pretty odd with a look of hesitation painted all across her face. "… I kind of think that being a soldier might not be so bad after all."

"Are you kidding me?" Riko whispers and Kazumi jumps a bit, startled. "This is that one chance we can to freed our town, Sakura. Don't tell me you are backing down."

"Do you honestly believe that, Riko?"

"Believe what?"

"You saw the Fire Lord. You saw how he treated his people. You saw…"

"No." Riko says with headstrong finality.

"What?"

"Fire Lord Zuko must end. It is time for a new sovereign to rule once more. Fire Nation deserves to reign over everyone. Father said so. Mother said so." Riko's eyes are on her. "Kazumi thinks so, right?"

Her parents… the parents she made up. She told them they died in the hands of the current rule.

"Hn." She mutters, neither an affirmative or a rejection.

Kazumi looks at the aggregate of the so-called elite. To accomplish her mission, she would have to get past them.

Ty Lee is staring back.

 **.**

 **(TBC)**


	6. Snow

**006 Snow**

" _Kazumi and her friends came from a town called Hanabi."_

" _The one controlled by Gato and his men, isn't it?"_

" _The very one. We are exerting much efforts to regain the land and free the people. General Huo can tell you more, if you want."_

" _That's okay." The young ruler's forehead creased as he leaned back with a tired sigh on his padded throne. Gaining it had been easy. At least the scar eventually healed. But keeping it had been a perpetual headache. Zuko told her once that the mark that her sister left to him still hurt during the coldest days. Winter reminded Zuko of the sister he could not help, of the country he was left to bear. "Do you think this will end?" he asked._

 _Ty Lee had a lot of unanswered questions in her life. And even with her title, with her badge, she would nowhere be smart enough to get answers. She wished Mai was with her. She wished Mai was with Zuko. She wished. She wished. She always just wished._

 _Ty Lee wished she could come back to Ember Island someday, without turning her back to take the return trip. Ty Lee had a lot of loose ends. Ty Lee had a lot of things that she could never seem to resolve._

 _This civil war, the Fire Nation tearing itself apart from inside, is definitely one of them._

 _Azula and Ty Lee's heart eternally yearning for its lost half was the other._

….

.

When Zuko tells her of face-granting spirits, of Noriko, Noren and the reasons why Kiyi could never seem to get along with Ursa, Ty Lee knows. She knows.

"You…"

"I know." Zuko concurs and they utter the same name at the same time.

"Kazumi."

…

.

The impossible happens in Fire Nation in the guise of a brilliant, cold sheet of white. Everybody expected it. Everybody knew it would come. But when the first vestiges of snow descended into the warm earth, children skipped schools. The grumpy generals were awed. The reclusive Ursa came out of the palace, and scooped a handful of the ice to her trembling hands. Firelord Zuko followed behind her, both eyes wide in wonder, even the one with the scar. And then the second assassination attempt of the month took place, this time targeting the more fragile member of the royal family.

This one was clever, well-planned and almost executed. But the blade that would have cut Ursa in half was intercepted by another. And the man that came too close was bound in chains in just three successive, fast blurs of green. Kazumi stood, pointing the tip of her sword to the assailant's neck while Sakura pinned him from behind and Riko had him in her strangle.

The first time her three protégé met Zuko, they were celebrated as heroes.

"I can see now why you were insistent on making them join." He tells her later, after graciously rewarding the three rookies with a hefty awarding dinner. One star and the title of corporals. The halls of the palace were dark, shadows looming over the portraits, an unpleasant physical manifestation of a memory lane. The orange candles blared. The golden-eyed mementos stared. It is a nightly ritual. The Fire Lord and his trusted Chief of Staff. It would have been romantic, like the songs of sweet love that graced their culture, of lovers sharing woes in the palace halls. But Zuko is busy on chasing ghosts and Ty Lee is too preoccupied on avoiding one. "They are pretty good." He adds.

"More than good." Ty Lee gushes, proudly giving a nod. She falls into step beside her Fire Lord, watching as the orange lighting baths him with an unnatural glow that would have made him attractive but only distantly reminded Ty Lee of another royal who closely resembled him. "Did you see how quick they were on their feet?"

"I did." Zuko stops walking, eyes drawn to the window. "Kazumi—"

Ty Lee decides to be straightforward. "She reminds me a bit of Azula."

"You told me, yes. Back when we were children, hm?" His tone is nostalgic, face solemn. Under the candlelight and the flickering refractions from the falling snow, the gold eyes and the dark hair are a painful reminder of someone else. He walks closer towards the glass, puts a finger to the pane. His other hand is laid on his chest. Ty Lee imagines the pain, almost wishes she can feel it too. If it proves that Azula had been real.. that she had just not been a dream. "She is quieter though."

"She is. I can hardly get her to talk most times."

Zuko does not chuckle, as Ty Lee expected him to. He is that kind of man. He became that kind of man after he locked his father up, after his mother locked herself in, after Azula was gone. "When we first came back, my mother cried for Azula, wondering where she was, if she was happy. I told her she was a survivor. I believed it. I did. She always pulled through." A bitter smile. "Of course, she would, I thought."

The wind crashes on the glass. From the second storey, the white seems endless. Zuko breathes smoke. "Mother also wondered if she was warm."

He gives Ty Lee a very meaningful look.

"I am wondering about that now."

…

.

"Kazumi!"

Crash. "Oof." The brown-haired girl protests, through a mouthful of the white slobbery mush. Riko giggles loudly. The sound reminds Ty Lee of fun, lazy days in Fire Nation several years ago. Cartwheels. Princesses. The carefree life when Azula does not have to be the war machine she eventually became yet.

"Here you go!" Sakura becomes the next victim. Chuckle. Taunts. Riko fists another ball and throws it to the glowering Kazumi again. She imagines doing this to gloomy, boring Mai too but it never snowed in Fire Nation until now. "I am good at this."

"Let's see how good you are, indeed." Kazumi produces a bigger ball and aims it accurately towards the other girl. The force that brings Riko down is exceptional like everything else about Kazumi, a gust of wind blowing. But the girl just chortles as though nothing happened and leaps into action once more. Kazumi sprints after her, the determined look on her face rather comical.

"Oh geez." Sulkily trailing behind, Sakura looks exasperated, tired as her usual default. But the small smile that plays on her face is what clues Ty Lee in on the ball she would pick as she breaks into a run to chase after her friends.

Ty Lee thinks that this would have been how she, Azula and Mai would have been had things been different, had they grown up as bandits on a poor town. Had Azula not been so blood thirsty. Had Mai not chosen love over the precarious friendship that they all knew had been severed long before Azula tried to kill Zuko.

Had Ty Lee had not been so in love with a monster she also feared at the same time.

But it was gone.

 _Azula is gone._

 _So what if I am?_

 _Yes._

 _Azula is very warm now._

And Ty Lee, who did nothing to stop it all from happening, could not help but feel jealous.

 **(TBC)**


	7. Cloudy Day

.

 **007 Cloudy Day**

Zuko's flames span different, unimaginable colors as he stands steadily, waves his fists and goes through the forms that reminds Kazumi of a sturdy, infallible beast. Blue, red, white lick in the air, the warmth slapping on their faces. Zuko goes through the firebending drill with seven other benders. The display gives her excitement, makes her heart soar as she imagines herself with such impressive power. Blue flames, she thinks. It would be perfect. For the first time, she sees why Zuko is Fire Lord. Such strength…

And yet such weakness.

What kind of leader would slave his own men?

What kind of leader would let his critics trample him, harm his family?

The contradiction is there. But it is not Kazumi's place to ask questions. The plan. Don't forget the plan.

"You're amazing Zuzu!" a little girl's voice. Ten, she thinks, while looking at the plain, dark-haired youngster that stands beside a bearded man. Wide eyes. "Yeah? You hear all of that? My big brother is sooo amazing!"

Kazumi is not sure why she is surprised.

And why she feels an unfamiliar churn in her gut when she hears the nickname and sees Ursa standing just behind the girl.

She never heard of a second Princess.

…

.

"South Pole!" Riko chirps, more hyperactive than usual. The mischief in her eyes is as clear as day, her legs swinging as she goes on and on about the igloos, the Eskimos and the water benders. The plan. The plan. Of course, she would not forget about the plan. "Can you believe it Kazumi? We are going to the South Pole!"

"I don't understand why you are so excited about it." Sakura is as always, the voice of reason. Kazumi is always thankful of her presence to their group, despite earning more of Riko's attention. At least, she does not have to suffer through the group's lack of sensibility. She does not know if she could handle Riko's mood swings. "Last I heard of the place, it's just a barren wasteland."

"I don't really care how it looks." Riko says, mouth a thin, amused line. Her voice lowers into a conspiratorial whisper, eyes darting around. "But this is our chance. In this mission, we can get Firelord Zuko. What better way to eliminate him but when we are closest to him?"

"He is strong." Sakura's brows are raised. "You both saw him bend. I have never seen firebending like that."

"Kazumi could take him. We both saw how she kicked four benders' asses."

"He has beaten Princess Azula in an Agni Kai." She says this as though this proves her point. Kazumi keeps her silence. "That counts."

"He cheated." Riko insists but the words sound hollow. "We can do it though. The three of us have always pulled through. We can do it together."

"I'll do it alone."

Stunned looks.

Her two friends look at her like she just grew two heads. Maybe three.

"What?" Riko protests, violently starting off her seat. Her eyes are wide, frantic. "What in the world are you saying?"

"You are not ready." Kazumi states coolly, not bothering to catch her eye. She thinks of that time when they allowed themselves to be captured by the Elite. When Ty Lee got her grubby hands on them. They had been captured too easily. Kazumi does not think the three of them are ready. But the plan. The plan must not be forgotten. "I am going alone. Think of whatever reason for you guys to stay. It would be easier for me to escape."

"Escape from whom?" Even Sakura shows confusion. Her brows are furrowed, eyes almost glaring. "From the elite?"

"Kill them all." Riko says with the impetuous abandon of an immature child . "That's the plan, right? Do whatever is necessary. This is our only chance, Kazumi. If we have to finish all of them, we have to."

"The question is if we could."

"We could. You are strong. A freaking one-man army. But you are hesitating? I know it. I can see it. You are hesitating! Are you having doubts, Kazumi?"

Kazumi's breath is taken.

Riko prods again. "Doubts, Kazumi?" She frowns. "Are you having doubts?"

Is she having doubts?

But why?

Why?

"I am the leader." She just says. "Meeting adjourned."

…

.

The snow has stopped for the day but the clouds overhead promise a comeback for the next. Kazumi finds her place on the barrack's rooftop. It would have been perfect. It would have been the getaway she deserves. But Ty Lee decides to share the space she found, fills in the silence she so desired with inane conversation and mindless remarks.

"Tell me about your hometown." She finally prompts after Kazumi learns of her six sisters ("…who looks exactly like me." Laughter. "It's like I don't even have my own name."), her former leader Suki and a bestfriend that she has not seen for years. "How have you guys grown up? How was it? It must have been really fun, ne?"

Kazumi is momentarily thrown off by how interested Ty Lee actually sounds.

"It's a coal mining town. Nothing special." Except that people die every single day, children starve and men and women worked to the brink of extinction, all to meet the Fire Lord's ceaseless demands. A desolate, ash-covered island like theirs had no business for dreaming of independence. To live, they must sprawl themselves for the rations, to the miniscule morsel the soldiers the crown sent to maintain things. Of course, the Capital would want to know about it. Nothing like misery to make someone feel better about themselves.

"I am sure there is more to it than that." But this commander, so naïve, so innocent. Kazumi had already seen what she could do. So strong yet so weak… like the man she serves.

"There's none." She huffs irritably, heaving a huge sigh. "You and this Azula I keep hearing things about, what's with it?"

She does not expect Ty Lee to airily shrug. "She was my ex-girlfriend."

Kazumi has already figured that out, of course. "You were crying about her."

"I was."

"Tch." Kazumi cluck her tongue. Pathetic.

Ty Lee is looking at her with wide, expectant eyes. As though she has to say something. As though she needs to say something.

Then she speaks again. "Do you want to know more about her?" Hopeful. Why does she sound hopeful?

Kazumi shakes her head. She shrugs her own confusion off. "She does not really sound terribly interesting."

…

.

"Seriously Kazumi, why do you have to be so stubborn!"

"For the last time Riko…"

"No, for the last time Kazumi…" Riko's tone surprises Kazumi. Livid. Angry. It burns. It burns so much. "… why won't you believe in us for once?"

 _She never did?_

…

.

"You don't trust us?" Sakura. She is calmer, more subdued.

"How can you tell?" Frankly, she is just weary of this.

"Riko does not really mean what she said." Defensive. Girlfriend to the rescue. Shoulder to shoulder, they sharpen their weapons. "About killing everyone. You know how she feels about the Fire Lord."

"You don't seriously believe he really is the one who kept our people enslaved, don't you?"

"I am sure you have noticed as well." Sakura shrugs. "Zuko is quite incompetent in political matters. But Riko's deep hatred runs deeper than that. That in itself is immaterial. The plan. Remember the plan."

"I know."

"Trust us, Kazumi."

"I know." She does not know why she feels so reluctant.

 _Trust is for…_

…

.

The clouds give in to snow once more.

And she remembers how the impossible happened already.

"Fine, I'll trust you." She musters after relentlessly being pounded for the topic.

Sakura shakes her head in amusement.

Riko chirps something about her being so hard-headed.

It is not like it mattered.

 _It is not like how Ty Lee would look at her after this, matters._

.

The airships are ready, looking majestic and magnificent. Ty Lee briefs them one more time and takes the other ship with her so-called elite.

"This is it." She tells them, after her eyes lingered too long on the departing form.. Riko smiles. Sakura breathes out.

And the three sail through the clouds with the wings of their freedom.

 **(TBC)**

Well thanks for the support so far. Even the shortest say about this is encouraging.


	8. The Southern Water Tribe

**008 The Southern Water Tribe**

Fire Nation's winter is nothing on Water Tribe's. Ty Lee has only been there once, when Suki tied the knot with Sokka in a traditional Water Tribe ceremony and that was years ago. The Four Nation Summit is an event that is rotated among every sovereign, with the Fire Nation capital hosting the last one the previous year. It is recognized as a monumental step to the peace that Avatar Aang strived for. The fact that the world's leaders could sit through a diplomatic agreement without trying to kill each other is testament to its success. Aang has been working hard ever since and it is heartwarming to see his relentless, noble efforts come into fruition.

It is one step to balance. It is one step to recovery. The world has been so scarred and it needs to be healed.

Attending this one as the Fire Lord's chief of staff reminds Ty Lee of the weight she bears, her own imbalance, of the fact that she should not be the one there in the first place.

That Azula…

 _It should be Azula._

Ty Lee's heart is broken too.

And she would probably never recover.

…

"They call themselves the New Ozai Society." Peace talks, after the never-ending debates about colonies and authorities, about exportation and merchandise. It is the same each mind numbing year. Zuko stands at the podium with trusty, loyal Ty Lee just behind him. The audience is rapt in attention, eyes focusing on the scarred young, leader. The Fire Nation's Civil War always somewhat interested them. One cannot blame them. The nation who brought the world to its knees, now destroying itself from the inside.

"That was named after… the ex-Fire Lord, isn't it?" King Kuei looks uncertain, his spectacles glinting in the lamplight. He pushes it to the bridge of his nose and thinks aloud with the authorized air of a scholar. "What exactly are their goals? And are they a threat to world peace?"

"They have some of the Fire Nation islands under their control." Zuko responds, with the practiced air of a politician. He is improving. Ty Lee is as proud as a supportive mother hen. " _Some_ is the keyword. We are working on other-"

"So this must mean that you are talking of several other threats then." General How. Stern-faced and battle-hardened, the man stares the young Fire Lord down. Ty Lee has identified him as one of Zuko's critics. Kuei is just a little more lenient than his inferior. "Several rebel factions. I don't mean to insinuate anything about your popularity as a leader but it does seem like your people does not like you very much, _Fire Lord._ "

Unperturbed, Zuko raises a finger to stop Aang from springing to his defense. He nods, graciously accepting the undisguised criticism. "I am aware of that. As we stand now, I have had a couple of assassination attempts for this month."

"Aaah." King Bumi's squeal makes everyone wince. The ancient man bites something that looks like a green rock. That one in the catacombs in Ba Sing Se. Yes, that one. "That explains those soldiers following you around. Skilled ones too. You can see it in their posture."

"They are an elite team." Ty Lee agrees, taking her cue and smiling at the wizened, old Earthbender. "I picked them myself."

"Fire Nation people always know how to pick their underlings. I remember the Princess. She was quite formidable with her own small, elite team too, wasn't she?"

Uncomfortable silence overwhelms the whole room.

The old man cackles, insensitive. Perhaps purposefully "And it proved to be her downfall too!"

…

.

"Hey…"

Kazumi looks startled. She should be, Ty Lee thinks. Perched on the ceilings, watching for any threats. The hiding spot of the recon squad is the last thing a commander would need to check in to. Not that a problem would likely arouse either. The world's best benders in one place puts the odds significantly in their favor.

No one would dare kill Zuko in this setting.

No one, right?

"Where's the other two?"

"Checking the grounds." Is her vague reply. Ty Lee does not question it. "You sought me out." It is almost an accusation. In the darkness of the antartic, she looks like a spirit, as plain and nondescript as her features are. Kazumi stands in her green dress, shoulder slumped.

"I did." Ty Lee admits, openly staring. Ethereal. Kazumi's shadows cast a fine silhouette. She is beautiful, Ty Lee realizes, hearing her heartbeat pound violently on her throat. Kazumi is beautiful. Just like she thought and still thinks Azula had been.

"Why?" Eyebrows are raised. Confused look. She fidgets on her sheathed sword, head cocked.

"I need someone to talk to."

"Hm. Being a soundboard is part of my job description, it seems."

"You told me you were not very interested about Azula." She utters, sighs. She takes her eyes off Kazumi's form and stares ahead the horizon. "That's a comfort. Everyone else seems to be."

"I can imagine."

"We are facing huge problems right now. The country is in a civil war. It would have been nice if she were here with us too. She always got that smarts Zuko did not have."

"I did hear she conquered cities at fourteen."

"She was my girlfriend."

Kazumi does not even react. Ty Lee does not know how exactly she would like her to. "You told me."

Ty Lee breathes in and out, eyes closed. "I miss her." Bitter chuckle. "Which is kind of wrong because I should not. She hurt me. I hurt her. I could not just… Mai was my friend too you know."

She nods. Maybe she has heard of what happened in the Boiling Rock? Or remembers it? Ty Lee does not have any idea.

"And so was she." The wistful note in her words… Surely, Ty Lee did not just imagine it.

"I know." Ty Lee looks up at the endless sky. The stars could be counted tonight though, it seems. "Sometimes, I wish…"

"Don't." Kazumi interrupts. Blatantly.

Ty Lee looks at her.

"Don't think of how you regret it. When you regret, you will have doubts. When you have doubts, you will not move forward." Kazumi pauses. "And you need to move on from the past."

"Of course you would say that." She says. She is unsure if it is even heard. "You moved on quite splendidly, yourself."

"Maybe." Kazumi shrugs and looks away. "I don't really remember."

…

.

They have sex, Southern Water Tribe style. Ty Lee thinks it is weird, her still clothed body rubbing against fur blankets and cemented brick floors as the awkward exchange of kisses in the rooftop escalate into a passionate tryst in her room. Kazumi kisses like Azula did all those years, sloppy, panicked, every bit of the socially incompetent princess she really is. Ty Lee does not know why she remembers this. Ty Lee does not know why she punishes herself all over again. But Kazumi's scent consumes her like only Azula's had. And for a moment, she realizes…

..that perhaps she can move on to a new life, like Azula herself so obviously did as Kazumi.

Morning comes in the South Pole. The sun shines and the penguins chirp excitedly. The Avatar had promised to have sledding show today. Ty Lee thinks that she could just stay in bed, deep in these fur blankets that made the night they shared more real, that somehow reminds her of how Azula smelled when they shared flesh for the first time too.

But Kazumi goes through it like nothing happened.

And Ty Lee wakes up cold and alone.

 **(TBC)**


	9. Evergreen

**009 Evergreen**

" _Azula."_

 _Kazumi pauses. Ty Lee's eyes are half-lidded, tears streaming from the sides. Her hold becomes tighter as the girl bucks their hips closer together._

" _Azula…" The moan is more distinguishable and the name more articulate. Ty Lee trails her lips once more to her neck, pecking through spots previously untouched. Kazumi curls a fist on the blankets. Why? Why?_

 _Why does this feel so right?_

… _._

"The Avatar is here."

"And the best waterbender in the world."

"Did you see her? The blind one? I heard stories."

"Yeah." Riko is slumped to her post, watching as the sun shines brightly in the eternal snowfield. She squints and Kazumi thinks the girl she thought she loved can smell her, the pungent scent of her betrayal, of her passionate night with their target's most loyal knight. "What do you think of it, Kazumi?"

"I do not think it's time yet. Let us wait for our chance."

There is no argument raised.

But their eyes are on her like they know something.

…

.

"I think we should talk about what happened—"

"I'm sorry to cut you in, _Commander_ but I have duties and you have yours. I need to go."

Dismissal.

She does not know why saying it feels familiar.

…

Evergreen keeps its foliage through the windiest of autumn, through the harshest of winter. But Riko is so irritable and cranky today that even the taciturn, nonchalant girlfriend Sakura could not stand her anymore. Kazumi thinks that at this rate, these two are going to break up soon, if the spoiled, demanding Riko does not get what she wants.

'I know you have reservations against this plan too." Sakura confides to her when the other girl finally decided to grace them with her absence for one shift. "Zuko… Fire Lord Zuko is not that bad of a man, isn't he?"

"Hm."

"It's just hard to believe he's the one controlling Hanabi, that's all. You're smart, Kazumi. I am sure you can tell."

Nod. Love quarrels can make the most uninspired person talkative.

Sakura sulkily goes on. "I just don't understand her sometimes."

"Riko bears the worst of grudges." Kazumi notes. Offering consolation is not her best suit. Even Ty Lee said so. _You remind me of Azula,_ she did say. The supposedly heartless Princess. No wonder she is a good enough substitute for a good fuck.

"I don't think that's it. I know her. She just likes the challenge." Sakura scratches her black head, messing on her hair loops. Golden eyes narrow. "To kill the Fire Lord. To start another war. To do things that Princess Azula never did."

This strikes Kazumi like a splash of a water whip. Azula… Azula… Why does everything seems to be about that missing, most likely dead princess? "What's with-?"

"Oh, you don't know?" Sakura looks confused. She raises her eyebrow in total askance. "Riko used to be a servant in the palace."

This… this is new to her.

"And Princess Azula was her first love."

…

.

She finds Riko trying to do her job.

That is, to watch the Fire Lord's every move and find an opening.

Considering that Zuko is still conversing with a bald man with a bad paintjob, she is not doing as good as she would prefer.

"She interests me." Kazumi pauses. "This Princess Azula."

"She is a wonderful person. Perfect. The most beautiful creature I ever met." Riko's eyes flash in a way that Kazumi never saw before, even around the quiet girl with gold eyes that she claims to love so much.

First love falls and dissolves like red, autumn leaves in the wake of the summer haze. Then winter comes to chill the bleak days and it never quite ends. The tree becomes all wood, its green fading in the white snow. It is beautiful but cold. It is silent but deadly. And Kazumi kisses Riko like there is no tomorrow after hearing so much about the Princess the two women her heart palpitates to loved, even though she cannot feel anything anymore.

"Oh…"

Kazumi ignores Ty Lee and her wide eyes and her tears.

But Riko, to her astonishment does not. " _Commander!_ " She exclaims but it is all for naught.

Running steps.

Even after the kiss, even after she finally let it out, Kazumi still feels empty.

Perhaps, because Ty Lee looks so hurt, so heartbroken.

And Kazumi does not understand why.

.

The two of them—Kazumi and Riko- talk that night and it leads into a confession. "I love you." Kazumi says the words that had haunted her for so long and she does not regret it one bit even though it does not sound as sincere as she expected it would be.

But Riko, despite everything loves Sakura. And it comes to the inevitable rejection. "But you haven't moved on, haven't you?" Kazumi accuses with a hiss. "You haven't moved on from this Azula."

Ty Lee had not too, mindlessly moaning her name when they coupled. _You remind me so much of her,_ she had told her as the snow raged outside and they huddled in each other's warmth. _You remind me so much of Azula._ Gold eyes. Dark hair. The Princess looked like Sakura. Perhaps this is why Riko chose her too. Perhaps this is why Riko rejected her.

"I guess I haven't." is her response. "I used to do her hair. I was ready to give everything for her.

"Ty Lee was her lover."

"Don't think I wouldn't know that." She is angry, her eyes flashing. The usually happy Riko gives her a dark, withering look,

"Is that the reason you wanted her dead?"

"I don't want her dead. I wanted her to move on, like I can't seem to be. But if that is what I have to do to get even with Zuko, so be it. I don't mind."

The plan.

Remember the plan.

"You saw how bad the Fire Nation is doing too Kazumi." She goes on, eyeing her directly with orbs that implore, that convinces. "We don't need a weakling like that on the throne."

It had been personal to Riko all along.

…

.

Zuko gives her a cool nod when they pass each other by. But he avoids her eyes and Kazumi thinks he indeed, is weak.

Kazumi promises herself, that she would kill him with her two hands.

.

.

Kazumi tries that night.

Zuko sleeps on. Nobody else notices.

But Kazumi, for some reason that she cannot fathom is too tremulous to push the dagger to his throat.

.

.

"I'll kill him." She promises Riko with so much anger, with so much aggression. She is not sure where this is directed. She is not sure what she is so upset about.

Maybe she feels so weak too, even though she knows she is strong enough to kill him, to forget the look on Ty Lee's face.

But like a cure, her heart soars when Riko smiles, when she looks at her in a way that she never looked at Sakura before.

"Thanks Kazumi." And their lips meet again.

 **(TBC)**


	10. Music Night

**010 Music Night**

Ty Lee's hands shake, her eyes wet. She runs away and buries herself under the furry sheets that still smells like the wonderful night she shared with a familiar stranger. She had thought she could move on, that she could take this Azula, even if she does not resemble much of the Princess she fell in love anymore. She had thought she had accepted her, the unforgiving Azula finding peace only by forgetting. Ty Lee had thought she could live again after finally finding a way to remember that Azula never left her, that she just changed for the better. That Azula just have a new way of remembering Ty Lee.

But Azula wants nothing to do with her.

Seeing that hurt. Seeing Azula love another person hurt. Ty Lee tries to focus her attention to something else, to the preparations needed once they are set to come back to the Fire Nation. To Sakura who looks distraught, to Kazumi who looks confused most of the time. There in the thriving town in the Southern Water Tribe, the trio's friendship is dissolving. And it is then that she realizes that she cannot watch something like it happen again, she cannot let that happen for the second time. She cannot let Azula experience it all over again.

"Talk to me! That's an order!"

Kazumi… Azula… finally pauses.

"Talk to me." Ty Lee begs, desperate. "Tell me what is going on!"

 _Let me help you._

"You won't understand—"

"Don't tell me I won't understand!" She screams and seizes her shoulder. How she wants to shake her to her senses. How she wants to hit her. "This happened to me before, you idiot. I don't want to see this happen to anyone ever again!"

…

.

"A music night?" Sakura looks startled. Separated from her two bestfriends, the usually untenable young woman looks vulnerable, softer around the edges. She puts down her cup of tea, eyes drawing towards the horizon in contemplation. Off somewhere else, her now ex-girlfriend (Ty Lee had realized) is probably preparing for the rotation of shifts. Kazumi had already retired to their quarters. The other two had gotten uncomfortable around each other.

"Just for us, warriors." Ty Lee affirms, giving off a small smile. "For the last day. Think of this as some kind of a dayoff for all of us ladies just before we face the usual Fire Nation action."

"I don't have a choice, don't I?"

"I'm not forcing you." She responds, with just the right note of mischief. "But you're right, you don't."

…

.

Riko gives her a blank stare.

The happy girl has become dull, bleaker than the ensuing days of the South Pole. The bags under her eyes, dark. The usually dexterous fingers that threw knives, tremulous.

"I am not here to talk to you about what I saw."

Because that one kiss does not matter anymore when Ty Lee is sure it did not happen again. Not when Azula seems to be able to bear her presence more than either of her friends.

"It's not like you can do anything about it anyway." That hurt. That hurts a lot. "But yeah, I'm sure you have noticed how my friends kind of hate me now."

"You love Sakura." She points out.

"You like Kazumi." Riko counters.

"I do." She does not hesitate one bit. She thinks of Azula, her brown and her brown eyes. The small, exultant grin on her face when she threw that snowball. Every spin. Every turn. Every flick of her sword. "A lot."

"Does she remind you a bit of Azula?"

It is Ty Lee's turn to stare.

Then watching as the light baths the cherubic features of the girl who once washed Azula's hair, she comes to the slow, delayed epiphany. She gasps. "You're that servant girl, aren't you?"

Mirthless laugh. "That's right." Riko guffaws, giving off a cruel smirk. "The one banished for cherry pits."

The one who saw Azula at her worst.

The one who secretly stayed despite everything.

And the one who left when Azula was taken away.

…

.

Ty Lee fucks Kazumi for the second time, this time on the room that the other two would most likely not barge in. She finds it ironic, how fate has decided to throw her in of three friends that reminds her of her own that she lost. In more ways than one. Sakura with the gold eyes and pale skin, the startling resemblance to one of the most beautiful creatures born. Riko, who shared the same love as she did but at the same time her stark opposite. Riko had loved her _because_ of her imperfections, the cruelty and the blatant manipulation. Ty Lee had loved her despite of it.

And then there is Kazumi…

She kisses like Azula. She fucks like Azula. Uncertain, insecure and Ty Lee inadvertently moans the wrong name again. She would feel guilty afterwards, once she remembers that this girl has brown hair, brown eyes and a plain face that Zuko had told her Ursa herself had lived with for five years. That this girl does not remember the nights they shared, the kisses they exchanged. That this girl, for all she knows, might not be Azula after all. That this girl, unlike the one who gave her a look that pierced, that swam in pain when she betrayed her, does not even love her.

Even if she comes to her in silence and accepts her embrace.

She tells her about the music night. Then she tells her what she did not tell the other two. That this is a plan she had to bring the three of them together again. Because she once had a friendship like theirs too and she could not stand watching another one be destroyed forever. Because of one kiss, one mistake. When Sakura found out what is going on with Riko and Kazumi.

"Thanks." The open acceptance surprises Ty Lee. Kazumi's eyes are closed and she looks relieved.

And then Ty Lee realizes that this friendship possesses the one thing that her own lacked.

The three of them are willing to reconcile with another.

 _Forgiveness._

…

.

The Music Night ends with a song from the three girls as they share looks, smiles and hold hands. She does not know how it happened but that night as Sakura sung the ballad of Hanabi and Riko strung a tune from long ago, Azula… Kazumi beamed in the light of the bonfire. And she never looked as beautiful as even the happiest that she had ever seen Azula herself.

Ty Lee wishes it could happen for her too.

And she sobs quietly at the thought that with Mai unreachable and Azula gone and now moving on with new friends, it probably would never be.

 **(TBC)**

 **The last line actually foreshadows a force majeur that is one of the hardest things I have ever written. From then on, this story would take a different route . I hope everyone is ready for Part Two.**


	11. Fireplace

**011 Fireplace**

 _The man who introduced himself as Gato tells them. "Kill him with this sword. Let the world know that it is me and no one else, who finished him."_

 _Kazumi rolls her eyes._

…

"I'll kill him with my bare hands." She tells them. Sakura nods resolutely. Riko beams.

"Then we could finally go home!" Kazumi is not certain who said it. Her two friends are inseparable once more but it does not irritate her like it used to. She tries not to think of Ty Lee, those brown eyes that trailed after her in every opportunity. Because of the plan. Do not ever forget of the plan.

"This is our chance."

…

.

They are forced to land in the outskirts of the Fire Nation. "The airships would not work at this weather." Ty Lee says amidst the loud roar of the snow. They have not foreseen this. "We have to proceed on ostrich-horseback." She continues, nodding at each one of her subordinates. The recon are in a perfect file, hands on their backs. Somewhere unseen, the Fire Lord stands with the elite.

"Do you have such supplies reserved in every harbor?" Kazumi is curious. She leans closer, peering towards the painted face of the girl she already slept with twice.

"Yes. It is for situations like this." She could see the flushed hue on her cheeks despite the pale coloration, the slight tremor in her authoritative words. This sends a wave of satisfaction to her nerves, despite her insistence that she has to keep herself detached as much as possible. "There is a big snowstorm coming this week but we cannot afford to delay the homecoming of the Fire Lord."

"Is there something else we should be worried about?"

"Assassins." Ty Lee shrugs as if it an everyday kind of thing. "It is their favorite opportunity."

Kazumi tries to tell herself that she imagined the glint of warning in Ty Lee's eyes.

"Recon troops start ahead. You will fire a flare if you see something odd or meet an obstacle along the way so we will be aware of it." Ty Lee touches her arm then pulls back with a soft smile. "Be careful, 'kay?"

"You too."

…

.

They will set off the next morning. They stand by the base's fireplace for the night, preparing the futons they will use. Outside, the beginning of the storm pulses on, bearing the angry wrath of the gods. Kazumi shivers under her coat, stitched by the good foresight of their Southern Water Tribe hosts. Riko sharpens her blades. Sakura is beginning to nod off.

Kazumi watches as the fire blazes, imagining little people dancing in the orange conflagration. For a moment, she has a vision of blue, feels her fingers warm. But it is all gone when Ty Lee's face barges in their tent, telling her it is time to sleep already.

Kazumi shrugs off the weird spark in her hands, the fact that she does not feel too cold anymore.

…

.

They advance ahead in the storm while the Firelord takes his fancy carriage. It is their mission, they say. Their responsibility, they say. Commander Ty Lee sees the operation off as the so-called Recon Squad sets away, her fingers point into a salute. Kazumi's eyes linger on her as her feathered beast gallops away.

"I did not know snow could be this heavy." Riko remarks hours later as the three of them stray off from the rest. They are in the village of Shinozuka, according to what the man in the front lines hollered. There does not seem to be any irregularities in the road right now. Kazumi only stares ahead, eyes decisive.

"This is our chance."

They need to do it before they reach the next harbor. It is still several hours away. They have time in their hands, even if the weather itself proves to be too stubborn.

"Alright. We can—"

"I'll go alone." She announces amidst the loud roar of the storm, daring them to argue.

But Riko and Sakura only exchange glances, much to her surprise. "Fine." It is Riko who verbally relents, smiling at her. "I know we would only drag you down. You're great. You're awesome. But three might be too much of a crowd for you, even if we are your small, elite team."

 _Small, elite team._

She kicks the horse to a stop, gaping. Her two friends pause too, smiling knowingly. "I'll use the snow as my cover." She cranes her neck, spying behind her. No one nearby. She could leave undetected. "If anyone asks, tell them I am checking around the grounds. The goal is for the elite to not see a single flare. Any problems, try to take care of it quietly without alerting them."

She pulls the reins, commands the stallion to turn back.

"You can do it!" Riko chirps, her enthusiasm muffled by the loud breeze.

"I believe in you, Kazumi." Sakura. Her voice sounds lighter, more amiable. Kazumi is happy for her. She really is.

Kazumi does a quick salute.

She looks back one last time before the shower of ice can impede her vision. The last thing she sees is Riko waving her goodbye and Sakura holding her girlfriend's hand.

…

.

She knows she would have to kill Ty Lee.

She just had to cross the bridge when she gets there.

The elite troop is just an hour away…

…

.

The beast whinnies and skids into a stop, precariously slipping in the slippery, snowy ground. It is dark, the downpour slapping on her dark hood. Kazumi pulls and tries to straighten but she falls and rolls to the ground. The smell of frozen water is overpowering and it takes her a few precious moments to distinguish the pungent metal scent of blood.

She approaches the lump of flesh yonder, the cold, dead hands still clutching the handle of a broken sword. She does not need to see the red and black uniform, does not need to confirm through the lifeless body. All around, several other soldiers laid dead over recent hoof marks, headed to the front recon team.

It was a massacre.

But…

And in that moment, she forgot about the plan, about the mission. In sheer desperation, Kazumi leaps back to her horse and kicks it into action.

The only thing that is in her mind is how she had not noticed the assailants passing by her and indeed, if they have defeated a quarter of the soldiers…

Without her, even her friends might not stand a chance.

…

.

But she was too late.

Too late.

She stops at the sight of Riko's listless eyes, her frame half-buried in the snow, almost torn in half. She chokes at the heaving Sakura, pierced by a blade through her chest, with a masked man lording over her. Her knees buckle when Sakura falls. Her fists clench when one of the many men surrounding the now dead soldiers.

This is so unfair.

So unfair.

 _This has happened before._

The helplessness… the powerlessness.

"We have another one!" She hears one of the men say and he runs towards her.

Her hands glow.

Golden eyes blaze.

"It's…"

"It's,,,"

"It's the Princess!"

 _I will kill you…_

 _I will kill all of you…_

 **(TBC)**

 **Azula is baaack.**

 **But yeah, that is not the only big thing that happened in this chapter. *sighs**


	12. Frostbite

**012 Frostbite**

 **.**

Ty Lee has already dispatched the last soldier when the remaining elite Kyoushi Warriors and Fire Lord Zuko witnesses blue firebending for the first time in years.

She pushes the vile assassin off her and stares at the sky with her mouth open. Only one bender could accomplish such feat. Only one color could be seen so clearly in the bleak skies and dark night that became the stage of so many casualties. She feels her knees tremble, her eyes moisten. The words are stuck in her throat and she forgets everything—the deaths, her failure as a commander, the danger-, for nostalgia seizes her senses. And she is the fourteen year old once more whose eyes flashed as magnificent, blue flames licked the air.

 _That's great, Azula._

"It's her." Zuko. He looks resigned, sad, the one who searched wide for a sister that did not want to be found. But the Fire Lord that has grown so much in the past five years is back in a second. He barks the orders Ty Lee could not seem to. "Head immediately to where the fire is coming from. She might need our help."

"But my Lord, she might be the one—"

"Embark on your horses!" He insists sternly, eyes bright with tension. "We need to get to my sister as soon as possible!"

"Ty Lee." He reaches for her numb shoulder, shakes her urgently. "Let's go."

The proof is there. She has always known. But she has not taken it seriously until now.

She does not know how to face her.

…

.

Riko is dead. Sakura is gone. Kazumi is nowhere to be seen.

Azula, Princess Azula, her body bathed in blood and her fingers sparkling with the power the world thought they would never see again, is the only survivor.

The Kyoushi Warriors all pause in muted shock.

Ty Lee does not know what to say.

The bodies of the members of New Ozai Society are strewn on the ground, their corpses either burnt or electrocuted. Azula stands in the blaze of blue, staring up the skies. Ty Lee thinks she saw tears. Ty Lee thinks she heard those pitiful sobs. Ty Lee thinks she saw Riko's decapitated body, Sakura's limp form.

But it is the wild, golden eyes that strike her the most, that leave Ty Lee gasping for breath.

Azula reaches Zuko before anyone could stop her. She slashes a blade of fire that Zuko instinctively counters with his own, kicks another stream that he blocks in the last second. Her teeth gritted, she breathes out one more jet, pushing Zuko back. He raises his arms to defend himself but Azula pounces once more with more power and Ty Lee's body just moves on her own.

But Azula takes the jabs, shielding herself with one arm as she grabs Zuko in a chokehold with the other. She fires a quick blast towards Ty Lee and grabs Zuko closer.

The words flow, coming with the heart-wrenching grief of the bereaved. Azula looks lost. Azula looks nothing like Ty Lee has ever seen before. "I came here to kill you! You hear that? We came here to kill you!"

She raises her fist, glowing with so much power.

And Zuko does nothing to stop her.

"Go ahead." He says, eyes closed with all the resignation in the world. "I've done enough."

"You've known all along!" She shrieks, hitting Zuko with bare fists. Once. Twice. Then it comes into a succession that nobody dares to stop, that Zuko does not react to. "You've known who I am all along. And yet… and yet!"

"If you think you can do a better job on being Fire Lord, go ahead and kill me Azula. As Gato told you to do."

Azula freezes.

Her hands relinquish her strong hold. Ty Lee rushes to Zuko's side, helping the beaten Fire Lord on his feet. Zuko's face, now a big bruise squints towards his sister, nodding as he struggles to say:

"I did everything that I could, Azula. I tried. But in the end, I sent my own soldiers to their deaths. In the end I could not please everyone as their leader. In the end, I could not even stop this from happening. " He averts his eyes, takes a deep, long-suffering breath. All around them is blood. All around them is fire. "But you could have protected your friends. I know you could. You were always better than me that way.

"But why couldn't you?"

The agonizing wail that follows as Azula screams for the past she cannot get back to anymore is something that Ty Lee would never forget.

It was something that Ty Lee never saw in her before.

 _Regret._

….

..

Their pace is slow. The sun, as if in mockery of the spiraling darkness they all feel is shining bright and joyful over the horizon. The unresponsive Azula stays at the carriage, staring mournfully at a distance. Zuko stops Ty Lee from joining her.

"Just let her be." He grasps her hand, squeezing almost painfully as he bites his lip. "She needs time to move on."

To move on. Azula had. As Kazumi. But this just had to happen.

"It's my fault." Ty Lee concludes. And she feels the cold bite of self-hatred take her as she lets herself fall into tears for the first time that fateful night. She wants to give Azula back Kazumi's words. That regret is pointless. That she wouldn't be able to move forward if she has regrets.

But the words are stuck in her throat and she watches as Azula crumple to herself on their way back to their palace.

Ty Lee thinks she hates the winter after all.

.

The trauma has taken its toll on her surviving soldiers. The trauma, the emotional frostbite that severed Azula's grasp of reality and the peace she had acquired as another person, left the Princess vehemently demanding information about the men who attacked them.

"They were members of the New Ozai Society." Seated on the throne, Zuko's back is hunched, defeated. Ursa Is looking frantically between her favourite child and long estranged daughter who barely noticed her presence. Azula is still dressed in Kazumi's uniform, still stayed in the room she shared with Riko and Sakura.

"Was… Gato with them?" Ty Lee could understand how horrifying would that be. To find out that she was working with a man who would kill her bestfriends. Her wide golden eyes, expecting the worst. Azula blamed herself for what happened. It was only a couple of days when it had been easy to deduce that Azula was not with the squad when the faction attacked.

She was about to kill Zuko herself.

And her absence… her own plan… is what cost…

"They were not." The Fire Lord replied, looking hard on his long-lost sister. "I had him arrested. If it is any consolation for you-"

"It does not matter. It is immaterial." She cuts in. Azula looked feral and it scares Ty Lee because this is not supposed to happen.

She was never supposed to see Azula again.

She had been ready, had been in love with Kazumi already.

Why?

Why?

Why can't Azula just be happy?

"Just remember that I am not doing this to help you, _Zuko._ "

She does not even know Azula anymore.

"I will destroy them." She proclaims, standing up. "I will destroy every single one of them."

Ty Lee cannot even look at her wild eyes.

Mostly because, Azula herself probably cannot see her.

…

 **(END of PART ONE)**

 **I know this is an odd take for an Azula Redemption story and I did not really expect much from this. I made up my mind that regardless of the response, as long as nobody would tell I should stop, I won't. So I want to thank everyone who showed their support through faves/follows/reviews. That is much appreciated. I myself is very busy with midterms, my night job and several extra curricular activities but this story is just lying around in my word processor so as long as I have an hour free everyday (it is usually just after I woke up every morning in my timezone), the updates would definitely keep going until Christmas' Eve.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	13. Blizzard

**Part Two**

 **.**

 **.**

 **0** **13 Blizzard**

Azula is reborn at twenty-one and she goes through life with the motivation of revenge, through the sharp blizzard of a self-destructive aim that makes everything else unimportant. Her mother, she does not see. Zuko, she does not care about. There is a kid too that follows her all around, that calls Zuko, _Zuzu._ But she does not even think about replacement daughters and mothers who probably did not even notice her gone after all these time. All she could think about if how _if she did not leave them…_

The only people who promised they never would.

 _If only she trusted them…_

 _If only she had let them come…_

 _If only she did not agree on this crazy mission…_

 _If only she decided to forget the plan. The plan…_

She locks herself in their room that is not even dusty from the week of their absence but she forgot that Ty Lee owns the key. _Go away,_ she wants to say. _This is all your fault,_ she wants to scream, strangle her, watch as the life leaves those round, brown eyes. But Ty Lee does not look at her like she looked at Azula. Ty Lee looks at her like she is Kazumi, unlike the servants, her comrades, her so-called family. Just the girl who lost her bestfriends in one fell swoop. Just a girl who is grieving and seething with the want of vengeance, not the runaway Princess everyone is so wary about.

She welcomes Ty Lee sitting beside her in silence, like Kazumi did. She does not turn her away when she feels arms wrap around her heaving, sobbing form.

…

.

It takes time for everything to crash down. She is Princess Azula, not Kazumi. Riko's first love. The object of Sakura's jealousy until the day she died. She is the one who conquered cities, not the orphan she made herself out to be, not the mercenary that stole for the villagers of Hanabi. The news of her return influences the panic of whole nations, prompts the Avatar and his cronies to fly through the harsh blizzard just to see her for themselves. But Azula is too absorbed in her regrets, in her goal and she does not flinch when they give her sharp looks of distrust.

"No. No. she has changed. Let us explain." This feels familiar, like that time she left to look for Mother, icicles shooting speedily past her. It is all coming back to Azula now. _I am sorry I did not love you enough._ Azula does not care and she does not look at Ursa's sad, sad face or her trembling hands.

Ty Lee comes in between them, waving her arms frantically. She is in her Kyoushi Warrior getup once more. Commander, she wants to scoff. What a wonderful commander Ty Lee made. "Let me explain. Please. Azula wants to help us."

"A lot of people died." She chooses her words carefully when they finally ask her (without looking in her eyes, these cowardly peasants) to speak for herself. "I would not care. I would have even encouraged it. But this is personal to me and I am not doing this out of the goodness of my heart, spirits forbid. I am not about to do this to help Zuko."

"What do you want then?" Katara. Water Tribe. She remembers back in her trip as Kazumi in the South Pole that she and the Avatar had gotten married. This too. She could not bring herself to care.

"Revenge." She says easily. "And I also want to free Hanabi's villagers." She adds.

It is the least that she could do.

…

.

She visits the Capitol Prison that night, kills Gato with her bare hands. He begs for his life at the last moment but before then, he had ranted about her inadequacy, her inability to stick to the plan, to accomplish the mission. He spoke the truth. He spoke of Kazumi and her friends like they were failures. Azula did not deny that, even if to him she was just a princess he never met. She no longer was the girl who readily agreed to a foolish plan in exchange for false promises of freedom. It was her fault. She was in fact, the failure. But she killed him anyway. Her first step for revenge.

She remembers Riko saying that the former Fire Lord is locked somewhere in the top floor. Stripped of his bending, chained and uncouth like an animal. Azula remembers the last time they saw each other, how they could not even talk like dignified people. This is what the Fire Lord does to his own family, Riko had said. Azula did not remember doing so but she agrees with her.

She does not take the stairs though. She does not want her father to see how weak she herself has become.

 _The plan, Azula._

 _Do not forget the plan._

Even that plan, she did not manage to fulfill.

….

.

Zuko finds out about what she did almost immediately. News travels fast and the walls have ears, as they said. But he must have grown astute over the years, more experienced. Azula thought she has covered her tracks pretty well. But then again, she might be the one who has become incompetent, the failure. Zuzu's the better sibling now, the one with the throne, the one with all these people after him. Azula does not envy him.

"Revenge is the purest of motives, Zuko." She quotes with so much melancholy that surprises her when the inevitable confrontation occurred to her room in the barracks. He has asked her to move, told her that her room is prepared and befitting of a princess. Azula does not care. It does not matter anymore. "You can trust I would not stray from that for the time being."

Ty Lee looks worried. Ty Lee sounds worried. She stays behind long after Zuko stormed off. She is the one with patience in their laughable partnership. The Fire Lord and his lap dog. "Azula, you have to be careful—"

"I was too careful the last time." She responds icily. "Look at what it brought."

"You were trying to kill Zuko!"

"I was trying to kill you too." She smirks. She pauses for effect, waits to see her reaction. Ty Lee looks heartbroken and Azula is filled with an almost triumphant glee. "All for my _real_ family. The one who actually acted like it."

"Can you just stop-?"

"Blaming you?" Hollow laughter. This too, is familiar. She almost feels the sensation of bound hands, of injected drugs, of four walls all around her. "That's funny because I don't."

It is there that Azula forgets everything—the rekindling of her teenage romance, the love Ty Lee herself had admitted to Kazumi—and all she could see, all she could remember is how she should just have killed Ty Lee, Zuko, everyone when she had the chance.

"I blame myself."

….

.

But Ty Lee does not give up.

She has forgotten things too, particularly the submissive, young girl from years ago that shed tears at the smallest of Azula's irate tirades. This Ty Lee does not falter. This Ty Lee just leaves her alone for a few hours before coming back when Azula is calmer, nodding like an actual dignified general. Azula scoffs because this should be her. She should be the one keeping her head in the light of the situation. She should be the one who keeps her composure at the face of fragile mortality.

The fifth day in the palace. Azula keeps to herself. Everybody else is too afraid to knock on the door.

Except Ty Lee.

It has always been Ty Lee.

"We have unearthed some interesting information about the New Ozai Society."

"I'm listening."

She sighs, hesitates. But something makes her proceed. Azula cannot tell what but there is determination in her eyes. "Mai's father is involved."

This does not surprise her. If anything, Azula should have thought of this sooner.

"I am thinking…" Ty Lee says, sitting beside her. "I am thinking that maybe we should go visit Mai."

 **(TBC)**


	14. Bleak

**014 Bleak**

Ty Lee is not sure if Mai just lost her touch of absolute indifference or if the sight of Azula standing with her hair down and wearing the colors of the Fire Nation, _unbound and with dignity_ is just enough to stand agape at _ **.**_ But those usually narrow slits of amber widen, long-jawed, almost slack. Had her knife-throwing friend been a lesser woman, Ty Lee is sure she would have dropped the vase full of _pink_ flowers she is holding in her astonishment.

"Hey, Mai." If it is another time, she would have run, leapt to tackle her oldest friend, even though she probably would never be a big fan of hugs, like she always warned her. But Azula's heavy presence stops her more clingy and affectionate side and she settles for a subdued wave. She is here for a purpose. She is here with Azula for a plan. "It's great to see you."

This, is true though. The words escape Ty Lee's mouth easily, reminding her of lighter days and the glimmer of hope she once felt in their journey around the Earth Kingdom despite her initial unwillingness. It is familiar, nostalgic even. Azula must think so too for she seems more alert, the once dull gold in her eyes seemingly awakened.

The changes in Mai over the years seem to catch Azula's interest more than anything else in the palace had. Not her mother. Not Zuko. Definitely, not Ty Lee. She had her thin eyebrows raised, perusing through the apron clad woman with undisguised curiosity. Her lips are pursed. Her arms are crossed. Sighing as if the sight is more than enough, she leans on the doorframe, cocking her head sideways but Azula does not say one word.

Mai breaks the tense silence.

"I would have understood what _you_ are doing here, Ty Lee." Mai's voice. Less throaty, almost gentle. A lot of things have changed. They have changed. Mai glances up to the fuming Princess, distrustful. Just like everyone else. "But what is _she_ doing here?"

"Believe me, I am not very enthusiastic about this little outing myself." Shrug. Azula shifts on one foot and stares blankly at the array of flowers displayed on the shelves. Her lips quirk mockingly.

"You are not exactly welcome here."

"I am fully aware."

"Wait, can we guys just get along?" Ty Lee cuts in uneasily. it is the first time they have seen each other in years…

"No." Mai states coldly.

"Definitely not." Azula retorts, snorting. But when she tightens her crossed arms, Ty Lee sees that for some reason, the usually infallible, confident princess is uneasy too. "Remember what we came here for, Ty Lee." Businesslike. Kazumi. It does not sound right.

"But can we just try not to kill each other?" To her relief, she sees Mai withdraw the stiletto that was halfway brandished already. Azula does not look like she has figured out how to firebend through her eyes. Ty Lee raises both palms. "We can talk about this."

"There is no time. We're closing."

"That's a pity then. Zuzu is apparently in danger, you know."

This gets a reaction that Azula must have wanted because she smirks with pride when Mai visibly flinches.

…

Every second in the company of Mai, every second in the reunion of what the Avatar feared as the dangerous ladies is every second that Azula slowly forgets being Kazumi.

She does not sound like the socially awkward soldier anymore, her words and diction taking the form of the smooth-talking Princess the world once fell in love with. She does not bite her lip, her eyes fixed on whoever she is speaking with. The unfocused, perpetually distracted country girl is gone. And Ty Lee wonders if Riko and Sakura's existence have been all a dream, if Azula losing the most important people in her life, in the life she made, is just a fabrication.

"About this, I will speak to Kei Lo. He is my father's henchman. I would not be so surprised if he's got something to do with all of this."

"Your boyfriend, I presume?" Azula quickly catches on, the amusement in her tone clear in her smirk. Ty Lee gasps, hand on her heart. Mai has moved on too?

Why does everyone…?

Why did everyone…?

Except Ty Lee and Zuko…?

Already moved on…?

Mai's glare is no less scary and she does not look entertained at all. "Shut up."

The road ahead of them appears bleak and precarious. The New Ozai Society, with their masked operatives who are willing to kill to get the throne looms powerfully over their heads. The three of them walk beside each other, exchanging advice and thoughts, like the friends they once were. It is a bleak road ahead indeed.

But if the three of them would take it together, perhaps it would not be so bad.

No, Ty Lee thinks.

Not bad at all.

….

.

Their teamwork is as impressive as ever.

When she recruited Kazumi and her friends, she once told herself that it was her sharp eye for potential, a Commander's knack to see talent that compelled her to try to convert the rascals. It certainly was not the fact that there were three of them, not the fact that one wielded knives and the other relied on her fists behind an enigmatic leader. But when Riko shot shurikens as she danced around in midair and Sakura flipped with a roundhouse kick to topple a man twice her size, it reminded her of better days, of the friendship she never thought she could get once more. But now, Mai throws, Azula bends and Ty Lee jabs once more and she knows full well how it got into this, how she got Azula back and she feels selfish, horrible—

\- for being glad that Azula is back, even if it means that Kazumi, the life she chose would forever be out of her reach.

"I guess this means the three of us are back together, hm?" she says as she kicks one man off her. New Ozai Society does not seem much of a threat, like the Avatar hardly was, when it is the three of them. Azula glances back at her, sighing.

"Don't push it."

Her almost gentle tone no longer surprises Ty Lee.

Azula's hands pulses with lightning and she just sounds tired, uninspired. Ty Lee feels guilty.

Once upon a time, Ty Lee thought that Azula does not have a heart. The truth is she does and it is broken.

And Ty Lee is one of the people who have mercilessly stepped on it.

The hole in her heart…

The hole that Riko and Sakura once filled…

The future is bleak because Ty Lee does not think she can do the same.

 **(TBC)**


	15. Fever

**015 Fever**

"It's over." She gasps out, watching as the masked men she vowed to kill kneel before her in deference. To her, they promise loyalty. To her, they apologize. These are the men who annihilated the recon squad she left. These are the men Avatar Aang believed is not beyond help yet. She had scoffed on his optimistic words, mocked its naiveté but when she faced the men she herself unmasked in the frenzy of battle, she is reminded of the families that would be orphaned, the hearts of the bereaved.

"The Fire Nation military has what they call the Recreation Program." She intones, speaking to the entirety of the rebels. They listen to her, like the Dai Li did. They hold into every word, like her own soldiers once did. Those felt like a long time ago, a lifetime even. Azula would like to believe those never existed. She hoped Azula never did. "Through there, you can start a new life. Perhaps, a new identity. We would forget of your past transgressions and remember the service that you would do for the crown from now on. It would be a new beginning. It would be a new way to be remembered."

From the corner of her eye, she spies Ty Lee with a worried look, wide brown eyes brimming with tears on her face. Azula breathes in deeply and addresses the men she subjugated once more in the sternest way she could.

She could not wield the blade to them. Curse morality. Curse conscience. But she could use her words to cut them, to hurt them…

To change them.

"We must all move on from the past."

Azula is best at telling people things that she should also tell herself.

.

Azula fulfills a promise she wishes, oh how she wishes she never had to make.

What is she without a goal? What is she without a plan? Revenge was what Azula has become when she was suddenly thrown into a world she has willingly escaped from. Revenge is what she has become when she is forced to become Azula once more. She would destroy them, she said. She would kill them, she said. But in the end, she could not take a life. She thought, as she sent her prayers to the spirit world, that killing has destroyed her life, took her friends'. They did not even have a chance to realize that.

They died sinful, wanting to end a life of another human being.

Azula would repent for them because they could not anymore.

But the conclusion of her journey makes her feel empty, aimless once more. Even when Ty Lee hugs her in relief after risking her life. Even after Mai admits that she kind of missed her too. Even when Mother, Kiyi, Zuko finally actually looks like the family she can look forward to. Even when the threat of the secret society that wants to dethrone her brother is eradicated. She feels empty. Nothing. Zilch.

The Avatar cheers. Zuko sighs in relief. Ty Lee holds her hand. Azula feels numb.

What is she?

What is she without _them_?

Once she is of no help to Zuko, what is she but a princess that has to be locked away?

Her empty shell falls ill that same winter and Azula does not even care.

…

.

They say that death is when you realize what kind of person you have been, when you can be true to yourself, when you remember every wrong you have done and yet still be able to forgive yourself. They say your life flashes before your eyes, a series of snapshots that lets you live your whole lifetime in a matter of seconds. They say you would know what your life meant all along. They say that you could die with a smile if…

She is Princess Azula. A cruel traitor. A monster who cared for no one but herself. _Trust is for fools,_ she recited when she pushed her friends too far. _Trust is for fools,_ she told a mirror when she has no one else to talk to.

She is Kazumi too. A hero to her people. A good friend. A woman who cared too much. _I love you,_ she told a friend she held dear. _Fine, I'll trust you,_ she told the two people who always listened.

She is Azula. A sister who helped her brother keep his birthright. A friend who gave them the justice they need. _I'll kill them,_ she has promised. _I can't,_ she said when she finally listened to the girl that held her hand all the way.

The fever takes her in its wiry, burning arms, consoling her with the thought of the afterlife, the peace of finally being free. Yonder, Riko and Sakura stands with outstretched arms, faces beaming and words beckoning her. _Kazumi,_ they tell her. _You did good._ For some reason, this reassures her.

"Don't die, Azula."

But Ty Lee insists, with tears in her eyes as she holds both of her hands, that this is not enough. It is unclear. The brown mess of hair on her bedside might just be a trick, a lie because nobody cared when Azula vanished. Surely, nobody would care if Azula dies.

But Ty Lee tells her things.

That she should not die.

That she would not die.

That she cannot die.

That there are more, better things that she could do.

 _I love you._

…

.

Her surrounds are dark, like she heard in the stories, like she gathered from the anecdotes of Uncle's trip to the spirit world. it is colorless, bland but there is a fire place waiting at the end, the only semblance of hue in the gray matter. A man sits by the log, poking embers onto the pyre. His wide back is familiar and she feels her face involuntarily crack into a smile, her head shaking in amusement.

"Lu Ten."

He looks up, cocking his head sideways. "Cousin." He greets cordially, that amiable way she remembers him. Days in the Fire Nation when she played Pai Sho with him. Days in the Fire Nation when she studiously watched him fire bend. She places herself beside him and the man, her long lost brother pats her head.

"You look like you have had a long journey, Cousin."

"You won't believe it." She chuckles and feels like she has not done it in forever.

….

.

"But you can tell me about it next time."

"Huh?" Azula is confused.

And he is gone,

She hears Ty Lee crying out in what sounds like relief. And as the darkness recedes and she sees the beam of the candlelight, of life once more, Azula understands.

..

.

She wakes up refreshed and cured with a deep kiss on her lips and an overjoyed, sobbing Ty Lee straddling her.

Azula finds that she does not mind this at all. She cups her cheek with one hand and pulls her closer. No, this is not bad. Not bad at all.

Azula does not know, Azula could not really tell. But perhaps there really is more.

 _I believe in you._

 _I believe in you, Azula._

 **(TBC)**


	16. Fur Blankets

**016 Fur Blankets**

Kazumi and Ty Lee had sex on a fur blanket. Southern Water Tribe style, she remembers. She laughs fondly, telling herself that perhaps she could do that again. Azula does not respond much to this kind of talk but she could tell that despite the unpleasant memories that surface, she thinks of it too whenever they come across each other in the palace, whenever Azula feels well enough to let herself out.

Azula and Ty Lee fuck again at home, with the candles burning brightly and the storm raging outside. Her kisses, braver. Her touches, warmer. Ty Lee moans the right name this time. And Azula thinks of Riko, of Sakura and sobs to herself once it is all done. Ty Lee lets her and shares the fur blanket that still smells like the first time they shared flesh in years, even if they do not share anything else anymore.

Not a friendship. Not the love Ty Lee once was sure that was at least there. Azula never wanted to go back to the life she escaped from. She would willingly be Kazumi. She would gladly stay as a peasant, if it meant she could be with people she had changed for. If it meant that she could back in Hanabi, with the friends that kept her.

Ty Lee does not want to think of it but even as Ty Lee could not live without regretting every single moment that she had not hold to with her one true love. Azula had been all too willing to forget about her. To her, Ty Lee would just be a memory she herself chose to forget. To her, Ty Lee would just be a part of her life that was unceremoniously forced into her once more.

The fur blankets should be warm, she protests inwardly as Azula slowly parts away, drawing herself to the other side of the bed, her warm breathing rhythmic with the pounding blizzard outside. The fur blankets should be warm, she groans as Azula leaves right after. The fur blankets should be warm, she murmurs to herself as Azula just fails to come one night.

Her heart freezes and she asks herself. But why, oh why is it so cold inside?

…

.

"You hardly changed, Ty Lee. Forever the masochist."

Perhaps, Mai is right.

Masochist, that is a familiar word. Ty Lee is certain she has heard it before back in the high days of Ba Sing Se when Azula and her had acted in their pubescent attraction. Back when Azula continually dismissed her even after it happened a few times. When it ceased to be an accident, even though Azula kept telling her it was. Masochist, because Ty Lee had willingly hurt herself. Masochist, because Azula was so obviously the sadistic one. Mai would never understand, she had thought. Azula was not that bad.

Not bad at all.

Ty Lee just thought she seemed better after their kisses, the nights they shared and she had been willing to take that risk to see her princess smile.

But the thing that hurts the most now is how Azula does not even intend to be the one causing pain this time. She is trying, Ty Lee could tell. Trying so hard to move on. Trying so hard to move forward like Kazumi once told Ty Lee too. But her stare is too distant and Ty Lee can see that her status, her firebending, even the family that is so eager to welcome her back, does not seem to matter much anymore.

"I'm sorry." Azula pulls her hands away as Ty Lee tries to pretend that she does not mind Azula's mechanical responses. Physical. It is all physical for her. Of course. It has always been. "I can't keep doing this."

"Azula…" She finds herself begging. So undignified. So unlike the headstrong commander everyone else tells her she has become. But Azula is not the only one who should lose something too. And if she has to come back to the submissive, impressionable dimwit that she was before, then she would willingly do so to get Azula back. "Please, I don't mind-"

"Don't be stupid. I am not doing this for you." But Azula has changed too. And this one that emerged from the ashes, from the remains of the life that Kazumi had made, does not want anything to do with the airheaded girl Princess Azula took to her bed years ago. That was a lifetime ago, Azula herself had said. That was the past that she did not want to remember. Though, despite her icy, cold tone, Azula's face softens. So perhaps there is hope. So perhaps the love is still there. Ty Lee is not even sure now if it ever existed. "I just… I just don't want any of us to get hurt, that's all."

But this hurts her.

Azula breaks away, hands slipping off Ty Lee's. And she is too busy hearing the voice of her long lost friends in her head that she does not hear Ty Lee's heart break.

…

.

She gets an idea when good, old, Mai tells her to just let Azula be. Ty Lee always ran to her. Some things might never change after all.

"But I love her, Mai." She confesses the words for the first time and she is surprised at how easy it is to muster, how, like a stream of flowing water, it just comes out. "I love her."

"You are in love with the idea of her. You have always been. The Kazumi that you met is the very personification of the Azula you have dreamed of and the one that we have now… is not that bad." She pauses, arms crossed. The whole ordeal has made Mai grow brighter, happier. Zuko too. Ty Lee knows she should be happy, should be overjoyed. And she feels selfish when all she has is but an unpleasant burning in her chest. "But you must understand that you might not be a part of the life that she wants anymore."

"But the life that she wants…" Her life in her one-sided romance with Riko. Her silent companionship with Sakura. The thrill of being bandits, of being heroes to the villagers of Hanabi. Old Sae cured. Azula has muttered everything at death's door. Ty Lee has heard of everything. "… is impossible to get."

For she is Azula now. Again. Princess to the Fire Nation. Daughter of Ozai and Ursa. Sister to Zuko. _Never forget who you are._ Ty Lee's—

"Which is exactly why you should let her be."

"No. I can't do that." She says with resolve. "But perhaps I can find a way. I can't erase her memories, the fact that she wants to be back there. But I can give something to live for. That's not too bad, Mai, right? Maybe I can take her to Hanabi once more. Make memories there."

"Are you trying to overshadow those friends she made?"

"No." She pronounces. Ty Lee shakes her head. "It was a bittersweet memory for her. She does not want to remember but she does not want to forget either."

Mai is actually listening.

"But I think through us, we can find a new way for her to remember."

"That is an idea." Mai does not sound encouraging at all.

But it is a promising start of a new beginning.

 **(TBC)**

 **Smoke and Shadows Part Two is released in Comic Book Stores today! Time to pester my American tumblr friends to spoil me rotten with scans. (*still wishing for more Azulaaaa)**


	17. Midwinter Madness

**017 Midwinter Madness**

This is madness, Azula grumbles, fists clenched and her face contorted into one of displeasure. Madness because Zuko could not treat her like some kind of ambassador. She helped him once. And that was it. That does not mean it would become her lifelong obligation. Madness because the airship reminds her memories she does not want to go back to. Like when she fell and fell and no one is there to save her but herself. Like when airships cannot proceed to storms and they have to proceed on land.

Madness because they are going to Hanabi.

Madness because Ty Lee and Mai insisted to come.

Madness because Azula is not ready.

…

.

It is the first time that she notices how beautiful Hanabi is.

The coal factory that she used to detest so much looms over the whole settlement, abandoned and unmanned and yet an inspiring sentinel that blares strong and still with the rising sun. the ashy, dark ground that once stained her slippers, the run-down shacks they called dwellings. But it is also the home that she has lived in for years. The people there always greeting her with a smile, with trusting regard. She had taken it for granted, scoffed at their admiration. _They would not love you so much if they know how much of a grump you are,_ Riko had told her while pinching her cheek. She never knew how much she craved it—that collective reverence once more- once the world started to look at her with wariness again.

And Hanabi is no exception.

The entourage of the Fire Lord is not welcomed with the cordiality that they met in the other towns they passed by, the looks of hostility almost palpable. Blameless, Azula thinks as the palanquin halts in the town centre, with the citizens congregated in a ring of hushed voices and held breaths. The town had believed Gato and his men when they said they were in the service of the Fire Lord. That they were but his slaves. It was an effective propaganda. Fire Lord Zuzu has a lot of damage to be controlled.

"It would be fun, Azula!" Ty Lee. Always seeing the bright side. Always trying to make things better. It makes Azula feel sick. This is the commander Kazumi was so impressed with. Ugh. Unbelievable. Ty Lee had reached for her hand then and her obvious hesitation had given Azula time to draw hers away. "I kept asking you where you spend all that time. I want to see it for myself too." Ty Lee compromised, smile thin and fake.

Kazumi, Azula wanted to correct her. She kept asking Kazumi.

"Her…" She had pointed at the… bored-looking Mai with petulance that was unbecoming. But she does not really care anymore. Of course. "Tell me again why she is coming."

"I am getting paid to do it."

"Huh?"

"I am your bodyguard." She shrugged, with a deep, tired sigh. "I also kind of want to see where you managed to hide yourself all these years."

"Shut up."

The blatant expletive did not work as well as it did before and she could not stop Mai from assuming her role as her shadow and Ty Lee from being her annoying, bubbly escort.

And with these two women flanking her side, Azula is brought into a disconcerting nostalgia when she addresses the people of Hanabi as Princess Azula and not the Kazumi they are all so grateful of.

….

.

They would stay for ten days, in a tent that she had the soldiers put up just in the outskirts of the town. Ty Lee had suggested the house that she lived in. "Kazumi." She corrected her, intentionally implying with her rough tone that her insensitivity is grating on her nerves. Ty Lee is one of those who could never take a hint. Some things never change. "Kazumi lived there and no, it is not a house."

"But you are—"

"I'm Princess Azula."

She had never been Kazumi.

The Kazumi that Riko and Sakura became friends with would not have abandoned them for a mission, a stupid plan. The Kazumi that they looked up to would have been there on time. The Kazumi that ate nuts, helped peasants and bathed on sticky, dirty mud they call a river could not be the cruel, vicious Princess Azula whose own friends even betrayed her in the end.

"I am Princess Azula and no one else."

But for some reason, she wants these people, these people that were so important to Sakura and Riko, that Kazumi tolerated once too, to look at her the same way as they looked at Kazumi.

"I will make sure that this town flourishes." She tells the newly elected mayor. Old Man Goro, with his limping wooden feet he lost in a mining accident. He is a man with character, who once went over just to save them when they had a close shave with Gato's bully of soldiers. He treated the three of them like daughters but at the same time respected them. "I will have my men set up for renovation and healthcare. Education must be taken care of too. As we speak, my soldiers are already building a temporary shack for the younger ones. I am sure you have some recommendations.." Yuri comes to mind.

"We have a nice girl named Yuri here."

"Great." Azula nods in satisfaction, closes her eyes.

When she opens it, Goro is no longer looking at her uneasily like everyone else did.

"Why are you helping us? We have heard stories about you. You were a tyrant… you were…" He hesitates and Azula softens her face as much as possible so that he will continue. "… you were not supposed to be a nice person."

"I guess some things just change you." She responds even though she has many other things she wants to tell the man that is closest to the father that she probably never had.

….

.

Ty Lee asks to see her house for the second time.

She is persistent, tenacious. Ty Lee's grin makes Azula uneasy because she expected things to be awkward between them. Nobody should be smiling like that with someone they used to sleep with.

"I told you it is not a house." She admonishes, sinking into a bench with a tired exhale. Mai is nowhere to be seen, off to somewhere only Agni knows where. Probably sleeping. What a marvellous bodyguard she makes.

"I still want to see it." Pleading tone.

"Ty Lee-"

"Please Azula…" Ty Lee is suddenly dead serious now. "I want to know about your life. I want to know about how much you have changed, what changed you. I want to know about Riko. I want to know about Sakura. I want to know everything about who you are. I feel like I do not know you anymore."

"Why is this so important to you?"

"I do not give up, Azula." She says, taking both of her hands. "I want to be a part of your life again and if doing so means I need to get to know Kazumi too, then I would."

"Ty Lee." Azula slowly breaks free from the clasp. She inches away slightly. "I already told you…"

"Please give me a chance."

"… I already told you that I don't deserve you, did I not?"

"No." Ty Lee stubbornly takes her hands again. Persistent. Tenacious. Those words fit this unpredictable ball of pink indeed. Azula stares at her lips. "You deserve to be happy. I deserve to be happy. We have always been together. We can pull through this together. Can you just trust me for once?"

 _Trust is for…_

Azula stands, breaks away…

… _for fools._

… and walks away in daze.

She hears Ty Lee jump in apparent joy. "You won't regret it, I promise."

Azula must have said she would try.

 **(TBC)**


	18. Snowman

**018 Snowman**

Their first date, after such a long time of institutionalizations and amnesiacs and denials is a hospital visit.

Except that Mai, gloomy, scowling Mai insisted to come.

"You did not do this. You could not do this. You would not do this. Not to me, Mai. Not when Azula is finally receptive…"

"I did not even know you have 'receptive' in your dictionary."

"Azula used it yesterday. Buuuut… Mai! You are not coming with us. Please tell me, you would be too bored watching your friends get together."

"I am still Azula's bodyguard."

Ty Lee groans. She palms her face, grumbling in exasperation. "You did not act like it yesterday." She complains.

"Oh well…" Her bestfriend has the temerity to carelessly shrug her off. "I am sorry if I just want to make sure she does not kill you."

"She wouldn't!"

But Mai is of course, totally ignoring her.

Some things never change. Ty Lee rolls her eyes as she decides on the best eyeshadow to wear for tonight.

Date!

….

.

"She's… dead?"

The nearest civilized town that hosts a decent hospital is Kasai, a thriving financial community that dwelt on farming industry and livestock. It is a boat ride and a good three towns away. Azula mentioned something about someone important to her staying in there. She was laconic in the details, taciturn as always. Standing at the big block white building, Ty Lee had seen her hesitation, the slight pause before Azula approached the receptionist—a pretty lady holding an inkbrush—and asked for someone named Sae.

"She passed away three weeks ago." The bespectacled old man elaborates what he has already told the three inquirers. His robes are a stark white, his gaze clinical and observant. It reminds Ty Lee of the man that came to push Azula's wheelchair when Ty Lee and Suki came to fetch her. Stoic. Seemingly unbreakable. Sympathy is not one of their skills, it seems. This one, even in a hospital of much less prestige is no different from the psychiatrist that had blithely told them that Azula was still… crazy.

He had not been wrong, of course.

The doctor nods his head once. "Her lungs had been so bad when she came. The coal factory had never been good for anyone's health, especially for someone as frail as her. There is a reason why Hanabi is a lone island after all. Prolonging her suffering would have been cruel. If you are interested," At this, there is a curious frown. "I have had her remains sent back to her family."

"She…" Azula falters briefly. Before sighing deeply and reverts to a more confident tone. Her usual. "She did not… suffer, I hope?"

A cool acquiescence is the response. "We made sure she went as painlessly as possible."

"I see."

"Are you of any relation to her, Princess?" The man brows are raised in dubious inquiry. Then he must have realized the sheer impertinence of his tone as he quickly lowers his head. "I mean, I am just wondering—"

"Did she say anything before she died?"

"She was asking for three girls." There is relief in his voice as he begins to speak fast. "Riko, Sakura. Kazumi is the other one I think. Yes, it is Kazumi."

It is as if the heavens fell on Ty Lee, an avalanche of emotions. A rush of unpleasant times. Her failure as a commander. It should not have happened. It could not have happened. It would not have happened—

Azula's careful tone breaks her depressing reverie. "And… what did she say, may I ask?" she proceeds slowly.

"I heard that they were working to keep her in this hospital. For Gato…" The man frowns, seized once again by intrigue. "Now that I think about it, what happened to them indeed?"

Azula, wide eyed, opens her mouth. But no words slur out from the once silver tongue, the girl who with a few words brought down the Earth Kingdom's greatest stronghold robbed off her smooth moves. Because she must ask herself too: what happened indeed? "They're…"

What just happened indeed?

"Do you know them, Princess?"

"They're…"

"They were our soldiers." Ty Lee finally cuts in, squeezing Azula's hands. She did not realize she was holding it this whole time, that Azula had let her. She beams at the older man, trying desperately to hide the uneasiness he has brewed, the memories he has once again unraveled. "We really must be going though. We thank you for your help."

They leave the good doctor open-mouthed as Ty Lee drags the mute Azula outside.

Her hands are trembling.

And cold.

Like her mother's.

…

.

There is a facsimile of a snowman- three of them made from sculpted and painted wood-, erected in the shrine that the townspeople built for the old woman. Flowers grown in careful abundance. The headstone is meticulously made. The old woman, Ty Lee would learn later is the mother of the villagers. The one that was always there for every childbirth, for every death, to sing songs for the lonely folk and to be the most festive when they have even the smallest reason to be merry about.

Ty Lee wonders what festivals they celebrate in Hanabi, which patrons they worship and sacrifice lambs for. Ty Lee wonders how many times tropical storms come in every year. Ty Lee wonders how the children celebrate their summers.

She wants Azula to tell her all of those, and more— to recount Riko's jokes or laugh at Sakura's antics—someday.

"She was the one who saved my life." Azula explains as they approach the stone stairwell and in each succeeding step, she says no more afterwards. Beside her, Mai keeps mum about the whole thing, unresponsive in Ty Lee's helpless prompts for help. But the bodyguard's attention has been fixed on Azula ever since, watchful and hawk-like.

"The snowmen were made by the town children." A nice young woman says. Yuri. Their self-proclaimed tour guide. Pleasant long-haired lady with a gap between her yellowish teeth. Scars on her left arm. But when she speaks, she sounds like an angel. "They loved Old Sae. Everyone did, I guess. Her awesome stories never failed to make us laugh after a long day in the mines."

The fond, nostalgic smile on Azula's face that she tries so, so hard to hide is so real, so, so real.

"Yuri… right?" Ty Lee offers her hand, exuding graciousness as much as she could. "Aren't you the new teacher for the school?"

"Yes. It would be awesome." She gives a wide gap-toothed smile towards Azula. "I really must say my thanks to you, Princess. I have to be truthful here. I did not really expect that you would be this… nice."

"Hm."

Yuri giggles. "I mean, it's awesome. You guys kind of remind me of my three friends."

"Your.." Cautiously, Ty Lee utters. "Your three friends?"

"Yup!" Yuri exclaims, eyes flashing enthusiastically. "I mean, they are away now, enjoying the world. I kind of envy them too but at the same time, I am so excited to show them how much Hanabi has improved over time. I think they would like it. Riko always wanted to get rid of that factory…"

She hears Azula take a deep breath.

"… Sakura always thought a hospital should be manned."

Her hands are getting colder and her eyes are already closed. Ty Lee squeezes harder.

"… And Kazumi… she always told me I should teach children someday."

Ty Lee thinks that it must take so much to not break right there.

And her admiration for Azula grows tenfold.

….

.

"Well?"

"Well, what?"

Mai places herself beside her. Nighttime in Hanabi is far from the bustle of bright activity in the Capital. When one cricket chirps, the other ones follow. It is a symphony of solitude, of the life that Azula has spent for the past five years as Kazumi. Ty Lee holds up her hand as a blaring, orange firefly whizzes by. "Azula isolated herself in her quarters tonight."

"I see."

"You won't approach her?" interested again. Mai leans closer, the eyebrow cocked in curiosity a contrast to her usually disinterested countenance.

"I'll give her tonight."

"And?"

"We'll build snowmen with her tomorrow. Like we used to back when it snowed here in the nation too. You know, when we were seven." Ty Lee looks up the twinkling stars. It winks. Two stand out in the blue, night sky. She imagines that they are her former underlings, watching over with approval. "Azula already lost a friendship. Let us give her back another."

 **(TBC)**


	19. Hooks

**019 Hooks**

"When I said fishing is better and definitely smarter and more timely than building a snowman with ashes, I did not think you would be dumb enough to take it so literally."

"She meant, sarcasm, Ty Lee. Haven't you had a fair share of awful warrior humour?"

"Oh, come on Mai. it would be fun!" Ty Lee hurls her pack of baits and hooks to her back, effortlessly slinging the items on her shoulder. Beside her, Azula who just emerged from the baths, sits down with an exasperated, long-suffering sigh. Here goes Ty Lee again. "Just imagine all the catch that we would bring the villagers tonight. We will have a campfire party and we could exchange stories and trade confessions. You have a lot of stories to tell I am sure…"

So she had not given that up. "Hm." Azula crosses her arms.

"See?" Mai scoffs and rolls her eyes. "I am not the only sensible person here after all."

"Last time I checked Mai. I have always been the smart one in any room."

"Yes. Especially true during your solitary confinement days I suppose."

"No different than spending the day in retail, I'm sure."

"At least I had a boyfriend."

"Mai! Azula! Can you just spend ten minutes in each other's presence without arguing?"

"What arguing?" Mai frowns. She puts her hand on her hips, looking tired with the world. "We were just talking."

"What? That's not—"

"We have always talked like this." Azula says, definitely not sounding defensive.

Ty Lee then mutters something sounding like the blind Earthbender's name and love in the same sentence.

Azula does not understand.

…

.

The waters of the great lake is calm today, serene as Ty Lee erratically paddled towards the center. What her plans are, Azula is beaten to tell. It is impetuous and sudden like the way she tugs on the levers. On the other side of the boat, Mai is doing her best to keep her head on the opposite direction from the head of security's ( _-scoff-)_ unnerving excitement. Ever since the lake has been cleaned by the waterbenders in Zuko's employ, the town of Hanabi looks healthier and less deathly than the one Kazumi had lived in for years.

This seems familiar, Azula thinks watching absently as Ty Lee had rowed with tremulous inconsistency. This, with Ty Lee dragging them somewhere. With Azula pretending and failing to that she is not curious. With Mai succeeding on doing so. Like when they climbed trees in the palace gardens. This with Riko promising it would be fun. This with Kazumi thinking it might not be too bad. This with Sakura as a devil's advocate. Like when they performed heist right from a rich man's estate.

This…

This fishing trip, ideally quiet and peaceful as the pacified volcano and the cool air. This reminds her of a friendship long gone, of the friends she left. This reminds her of a friendship that seems to be starting over again now, the ones who left her.

"Um," Ty Lee fidgets with the string periodically, checks if the bait is still there. "Maybe fishes 'round here are not fan of worms. What do you think Mai?"

Sighing, Mai makes it clear how disinterested she is. "I don't know. I don't care." As though that is not bad enough when it comes to dealing with Ty Lee's tendency to be babied, she gestures towards the equally bored Azula. "Ask the one who lived here for five years."

And apparently, the girl who once worshipped her thought Azula had the answers Mai did not. "Well?"

"Maybe we could get more with lightning."

"Really?"

Azula brandishes a finger infused with blue-white sparks. This, she missed a lot. "Kazumi was a good fisherman."

She dips it into the water.

"But Azula is better."

The lake momentarily explodes into bright, blinding string of current that screams the song of a thousand birds. The astonished and mildly impressed look on their faces reminds Azula of when Kazumi once made a firework show for a job well done. "The sky is endless." Riko had said. The sea was too, Ty Lee had said herself.

They…

… are not so different after all.

Fate playing tricks? Providence a bad joker? Azula is not sure what to believe anymore.

"It's beautiful." Ty Lee whispers as the light, the beam fades. Azula finds that she still likes that look on her face.

Fishes starts to surface.

Azula averts her eyes when Ty Lee looks back at her with admiration.

…

.

"Are you sure we did not kill everything?"

"I am sure _I_ did not kill everything." Azula enunciates with emphasis, as she loads the last batch of catch in the bucket Ty Lee somehow foresaw bringing with them. "It's just a small bolt. Totally harmless except for those who are a little less deep in the lake."

"Never thought of seeing this day." Mai scoffs. "Princess Azula reassuring Ty Lee that she spared the lives of a couple of fishes."

"Ha-ha."

"I told you Mai!" Ty Lee chirps in upbeat agreement, lifting the biggest one of their catch. Scaly, gray, big jawed thing. Riko would have liked it. She always liked the seafood they once struggled to smuggle from the greedy, fat merchants. _We are doing them a favor,_ Azula remembers her saying. "Azula has changed!"

"Hm." Dismissive. She pushes one bucket to the corner of the boat as Ty Lee prattles on the good qualities that she insists she saw on Azula.

To her surprise, Mai nods and shrugs her shoulders with an airy abandon. "I kind of agree."

Her eyes must have widened so comically because the stoic knifethrower quips. "Forget I said that."

She chuckles like she never chuckled since Kazumi died with her friends.

….

.

The next bonfire happens in the shores of the town Kazumi started her life at sixteen, the place Mai and Ty Lee are assigned to for a week and the one home that Azula finally felt welcome in. it is nothing like the tense atmosphere of Ember Island, nothing like the dramatic exchange of teenage angst. The one in Hanabi sails in comfortable silence as the flames dance, their weathered and tired faces glowing in the night. _I will always remember this._ They recount the experience as adults, seated on the grey sand of the remote island. And this time, Azula does not have to act like everything is fine.

A lot has happened in five years. In five years, Mai had moved on to be a woman who stood by her word, far from the girl who sat still, who only spoke when spoken to. She speaks of boring days as a cashier, long tales of her most ridiculous customers. "Retail teaches you to be nice to assholes."

"You did not learn it, it seems."

"Believe me, Azula. You are not the worst person one could be spending ten days in a Agni-forsaken island."

"Is flattery necessary to customer service too?"

"It's an integral part on every how-to-keep-your-job-manual."

Ty Lee became second in command to the country that was once most powerful in the whole world, a woman whose name everyone now knows. The leader of her matched set. Head of Security. It is a title that Azula admits, despite everything, is one that Ty Lee deserves. She could not have done a better job. "Did you know that my sisters are working in the circus now?"

"Here I thought I would have avoided all these trouble if I chose to befriend another sibling."

"Hey! You've got to admit it was love at first sight!"

And here comes Azula, once fearsome Princess, once one of the most powerful people in the world, who would be content once she could someday settle down to this place and spend the rest of her days away from the politics which took everything she loved away.

But Ty Lee's hand on her lap and Mai's arrogant smirk Azula did not realize she actually missed, are the ones that remind her that perhaps her past had not been that bad. Not bad at all.

And the future with them flanked on her sides, like Riko and Sakura had been would not be bad too.

Nope.

Not bad at all.

"I will always remember this." She is the one who says it this time and is still becomes the imaginative one who thinks of the best way to end their night.

One last robbery.

 **(TBC)**


	20. Frosting

**020 Frosting**

Ursa welcomes her estranged daughter back home with a kitchen specialty. The household's matriarch's baked pastries are ones that every palace guard looks forward to, in every feast, in every little thing they manage to celebrate from time to time. Ty Lee had many of Ursa's sweet, sugar cakes served for her men (and women). Ty Lee suspects that over the years in the abode that had once suffocated her, it is the one thing that kept Ursa sane, the one thing that momentarily makes her remember a missing daughter in a new light. She remembers Kazumi getting a second helping, then a third, then a fourth. It was "not bad", she said. "Not bad at all." she said.

Azula had always liked those cakes. Five years old and barely able to bend yet, the frosting left on her cheeks once made Azula a happy child. Ursa had avoided the subject as much as possible but then again, nobody really asked.

"She made these?" Azula says, looking appalled and horrified once her mother had rushed off from the silently glowering royal. There was no love lost between the two, the space between them still treading with broken smithereens of the fragile bond that a mother and daughter once shared. Kiyi is a little braver on the matters of her long lost elder sister (that kind of looked like the crazy woman who wanted to kill… mother, back when she still looked like herself). Ty Lee thinks that if she would just come a little closer, she would find out that Azula does not bite.

Ty Lee has all those.

She briefly fantasizes on as Azula reluctantly puts the white cake, topped with frostings on her sexy mouth. Her tongue runs in between her parted lips and she takes in a deep, somewhat appreciative breath.

"Maybe, she has realized it is your all time favorite." Mai's tone is mocking, amused.

"Maybe you should talk to her." Ty Lee's statement is definitely more earnest.

Azula, of course, takes them both as a joke.

…

.

But it is Ursa, once they are already preparing to retire to their rooms that same night, who approaches her daughter first. "I want to talk to you, Azula." Her tone is pleading and the trembling on her knees makes Ty Lee predict that she would fall into it soon if Azula proves to be too cold and hopeless for any hopes of reconciliation. "I need… to talk to you. You can't pretend that I do not exist. I cannot pretend that everything is fine. Please, Azula. I need you… I need you…"

Ty Lee holds her breath.

"… I need you to stop blaming everyone for what happened."

Ty Lee wants to slap her then.

Why does she have to say that?

"I am excusing myself." Mai says. She did not sound polite and the cocked eyebrow that she presents to Ursa makes it more apparent. "I do not have time for this drama." She adds as she shuffles to her room, the closing of the door soundless.

"Please… Azula." Ursa begs. The distance that she maintains from her daughter… Ursa could not even touch her, hold her hand.

Ty Lee is about to say something, to tell her to give Azula time in the least hostile or imposing way as possible but Azula calmly holds up her hand, fingers raised and meets her mother in the eye for the first time.

"Blaming you for everything is something that I haven't done in years. I am sure you know that I forgot to."

Azula's face does not betray anything about the torrent of emotions she must feel.

But when she says that yes, she and Ursa can continue their conversation in her quarters alone, it makes Ty Lee think that the gap between mother and daughter is not so wide after all.

And Azula, this time would not mind meeting her mother in the middle.

…

.

It is a gradual process, one that took months, one that would probably take forever. And perhaps forever is not enough, that neither of them might not have enough time to completely forget of the severed string that bound them. Ursa's relationship with her eldest daughter is forever broken, forever fractured. She could not hope for Azula to smile like Zuko did to her, would never see the sparkle in her eyes but she could look forward to breakfasts when Azula would agree that their family needs a vacation, could imagine that the loving, sisterly relationship she is slowly developing with Kiyi was never marred with accusations about replacements, of the eventual admission of not being loved enough.

"So you two got back together?" Of course she has known. One cannot be the palace security head without knowing which door creaked and opened to which room. Mai and Zuko had been sneaking around so much for months that even Azula did not find novelty on teasing them about it anymore. Poor Kei Lo, Ty Lee could not help but think. "Well, some things are inevitable." Azula had said when she voiced that out.

"Might as well do the announcement for the whole world to hear, Ty Lee." It is the first time she has ever seen Mai so awkward, so out of her element. Around the dining table, Ursa leans closer as Azula turns her head curiously from her rather strained conversation with her mother about Kiyi's lessons. "Yes, I am pregnant."

They would be great parents, everyone said. They would be exceptional, some even go as far as kissing their asses. But Zuko's apprehension and Mai's increasing ire and the fears she would not dare admit spark a crisis in the palace. When Ursa looks at Azula, the cold daughter who does not try to make a secret of her preferring to be left alone and Kiyi who never warmed to her, she realizes that she is not the most qualified person to give parenting advice.

"Do you think you would be a great aunt?'

"I would be exceptional." Azula goes through yet another early morning drill. Blue flames explode from her fists, dancing on her command so fluidly. It reminds Ty Lee of how Kazumi effortlessly wielded her swords, how she stepped around with the same cat-like grace that made Ty Lee's heart erratically beat. She is reminded of how much she wants to touch Azula, for that body to writhe again as it entwines against her, for their lips into the oneness of the love she knows they still shared somehow.

And she is reminded of the tacit, detached rejections, of the many times Azula closed doors before Ty Lee can even knock.

"I want children too…" But her words fall into deaf ears.

"I used to push Ikem down when we were children."

She recalls of two little hands forcing her to the ground too, wide eyes brimming with laughter. Of fingers closing in to pull down her braid. Of a strange girl who turned out to be the country's princess following her around school just to tell her to go away. "You even had the temerity to look hurt! Just impertinent!" Azula had shrieked in panic when Ty Lee had burst into tears one time in detention.

She wants to slap herself for asking Ursa, of all people for an advice. But Ty Lee is growing desperate and Azula remains elusive. "How does that even help me?" she moans, putting her head on her hands.

Ursa's smile is kind and it makes Ty Lee guilty of the many times she imagined how much she hated the woman that started the trend of Azula's monstrosity. "You told me before that my daughter and I are more alike than the both of us cared to admit."

"Hm."

" Apparently, you are right. She totally got my flirting skills."

Involuntarily, her face flushes, remembering wild days of their youth when their Sapphic desire had been harmless and fun and not forged with the commitment Ty Lee is now willing to embark in. "We had our time." She sulks, then curiously raises her eyebrows. "Is that why you are not as against to our… er, relationship as I thought you would be?"

"I'm more open-minded than you give me credit for, fortunately." Ursa chuckles. "I just want to tell you that she would come around, that's all. Sandbox love never dies."

"You don't know that." Ty Lee drawls doubtfully.

"Believe me." Ursa's tone is almost condescending in its inflections. The smirk on her face reminds her of a triumphant Azula. She did not get her cunning from Ozai, it seems. "Believe me."

Ty Lee, seriously wants to.

It took Ursa changing faces for Ikem and her to get back together after all.

 **(TBC)**

 **Almost late because that Miss Universe Pageant caught my attention. Congratulations to our representative, Miss Philippines!**


	21. Gifts from Iroh

**021 Gifts from Iroh**

The coming of her Uncle is what Azula openly admits is something she does not care much about. Predictably, Zuzu is excited. Even her mother is looking forward to it. Kiyi would not shut up about gifts and would go on and on for the whole day that Azula finds it hard already to tolerate her. Apparently she liked the dolls that Azula used to burn and appreciated the old man's nonexistent sense of humor. She never had a very comfortable relationship with Iroh, his tea-loving kookiness and there is no love lost even as they nod at each other when he comes in through the door for the first time since she… Kazumi came back.

Ty Lee squeals at the pink-bound sketchbook Uncle handed her, marveling at the admittedly exquisite Mache cover and the brown, crackling pages. From Ba Sing Se bookshop, he bragged as though that meant anything. Kiyi has run off somewhere with a green-garbed doll that looks vaguely familiar. Azula cannot place it. Zuko stays, chuckling at the paperweight that he probably got from cheap traders—pirates most likely. Even Ursa and Ikem got their share. Azula does not know why she keeps staring at her empty hands.

"Azula."

She looks up. Slowly. "Uncle."

The reunion is the most uncomfortable meeting Azula has ever encountered. At least, Ursa had had the sense to avoid direct confrontation at first, to linger around until Azula can finally pronounce herself ready. But fuddy, duddy Uncle Iroh has no such tact. The man who did not hesitate to push her over board. Of course. He would not try to find the time to hunt for gifts that she would not incinerate.

Azula has never been worth the effort.

No one stays.

She burns bridges only because there had been a spark that lit it in the first place. They never tried. They never stood by.

"I was not sure what to get you." His tone sounds apologetic. His smile uncomfortable. Uncle has never treated her like he treated everyone.

Azula's careless but pointed shrug tells him that she is not surprised one bit.

…

.

Iroh finds her in the gardens, during that particular time of the day she reserves for meditation. She does not understand why he lowers himself to sit beside her. She does not understand why he breaks the code of silence for the sake of inane conversation with a niece he never bothered with. "I used to do it all the time when Lu Ten died." He starts. His tone is strained, as if he is just forcing it out. "It is a good way to deal with grief."

Azula gradually opens her eyes, cranes her neck to face him.

"Once upon a time, I believed I would see my son again. In my several journeys to the Spirit World." He continues. His tone takes a nostalgic change. He chuckles softly. "I heard of what happened. I am sorry for your loss."

"That really does not make a difference." She rises and Iroh looks up. Riko and Sakura will still be gone, no matter how many relationships she would attempt to rebuild. She has a lifetime to erase such feelings, true. But how long does a lifetime last? Azula faces him squarely, unflinching. "But I am relieved you did not come to offer your consolations six months ago." She adds solemnly.

"I would have discouraged you from pursuing revenge indeed."

"Because it would still be pointless, I know. I realized that. I would still be empty afterwards. Violence does not solve everything. I understand that." That damn Avatar, making her sound soft-hearted like this. Her. Princess Azula. _Idiot,_ she harrumphs to herself. But perhaps the reality is that, the world needs idiots like that once in a while.

"I am glad you do." Iroh nods sagely but stays seated. His eyes drawn towards the turtleduck pond, Azula's eyes follow his gaze. Mother and its chicks. There is always one left behind. "You told me in this exact place that I should have avenged Lu Ten's death."

"Hm." She remembers. But Iroh made it sound more all dramatic and heartwrenching that it really was. She taunted him, like she did Zuko. Because Father approved. Because Father implied she should do so.

Iroh holds her gaze. "I sometimes forced myself to think that it is the way you try to deal with pain."

"But that is not the answer, of course." Azula snorts. "I was just a nasty, difficult child."

"You were."

"You did not exactly make it a secret."

"But you loved your Father." He strays from her eyes again, looking forward. "That is a sentiment I could understand. I loved my son enough to abandon my ambition."

"And I guess, I loved my father enough to abandon my humanity."

The silence between them for the first time, is comfortable.

Maybe Uncle is not that bad, not at all.

They think the same way, sees the world with the same pair of eyes that has to witness tragedy before seeing the light. They remembered each other with both regret and mutual dislike but it seems like they can now remember each other with understanding, peace and the few things that they strongly share.

"I spoke with Lu Ten." She tells him finally and sinks down to the seat beside him.

And Iroh understands too. His smile is kind and Azula does not remember a time that she ever saw such thing. "I guess I would want to know about that. But equal trade must be followed. How about I let you speak with your Father?"

Azula thinks, that she might like Iroh's gifts after all.

…

.

"Are you done, now?"

"If you don't mind, I'll have to ask you to stay like that for a couple of minutes. There, there. Just beautiful." The sound of delicate brush strokes slaps on the rough parchment. Ty Lee has a small smile on her face as she runs the ink into squiggles and shades—things she cannot really understand. Azula does not really see much from her position but she knows enough of Ty Lee's hidden talent to trust that she could give it justice at least.

"You look really happy today, Azula." Ty Lee remarks as she looks up to observe some contour of her face she needs to double-check. Her forehead creases with concentration, tongue stuck out on the side. "You are practically glowing with pink. It suits you."

"Does my beauty inspire the artistic side of you?" She flips her hair. Self-effacing. This, she certainly does well.

Ty Lee laughs. "Nah, silly. I just want to remember this moment forever."

"That's sweet. And make a shrine of me I guess."

"I might just do that." Ty Lee is giving her that look again, fingers still sketching through. But Azula carefully avoids the protuberant eyes that beg to be held, those lush lips that beg to be kissed. She does not see Ty Lee's disappointment. She does not want to.

"The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not staying where you are."

She just came from her visit to the Capital Prison. It went well, even though Father is mostly unresponsive now that he spent seven years isolated. Azula thinks that he should just die, just leave the world if it meant that he would spend his last days to rot while she, his conspirator gets a shot of redemption. For incarceration is the worse punishment for the man who lost his identlty and everything else. She had been lucky. But in the few instances that she gets him to talk, he keeps saying that he is yet to see something. That he still needs to see something.

She just hopes he is not planning to rekindle the Organization she already killed once.

She drinks the tea that Iroh has prepared, takes it into one gulp and asks. "Is that some cheesy, old man line about moving on?"

"You sound more receptive than your brother. But it is not, as you say, cheesy when it is true." He says, cryptic as ever. The mischief sparkling in his gold eyes makes Azula roll her eyes. Agni forbid, she would age like this. "You had your past. You have your present. You still have your future. And so does that lovely, young lady."

"She has a name. Ty Lee."

"A lovely name for a future member of the royal family."

Azula takes it back.

"Ugh."

She still does not appreciate Uncle Iroh's jokes.

 **(TBC)**


	22. Ice Skating

**022 Ice Skating**

'Republic City!" Ty Lee exclaims, as excitedly as she can sound. Staring into the seemingly endless sea, Azula barely reacts at her enthusiasm, choosing to sulk as she did when Zuko informed them of their errands for the month. Being the Fire Lord's Ambassador, with her sliver tongue and ever so charming public speaking skills, Azula has become a crucial part of Fire Nation politics and surprisingly enough, what was dubbed then as the Harmony Restoration Movement. "Whatever that is." Azula had scoffed. It is the first time that Zuko would be sending a delegate in his place to the Four Nations' Summit. It is the first time that it would be held to the very testament of this worldwide cooperation: Republic City.

It is the first time, therefore that Azula would be out of the country that has already accepted her back.

"I'd prefer if you would not pretend to actually enjoy this little excursion and what I am sure would be, awkward socializing." Azula leans her elbows on the railings of the deck, forelocks blown in the wind. They have gotten longer but a hair out of place does not seem to irritate Azula as much as it used to. "I am sure you hate it as much as I do."

Perhaps, she does. Perhaps, she remembers the events that led to several unnecessary deaths from the summit of the previous year as much as Azula sees it as her life's biggest mistake. Just a year. But it seems longer with the many things that happened. But Ty Lee has always been selfish. And this, would be the first time in several months that she would be alone, really alone with Azula. Ursa cannot leave her daughter for more than an hour and Uncle Iroh thought he finally found a worthy Pai Sho opponent in his niece. She is unbeatable now, Ty Lee heard.

"I am sure we would have fun." Her attempt of reassurance is feeble as she could not really think much of the attractions they can entertain themselves once they arrive for the meetings. Republic City is at best, still experimental. The safe haven for refugees that find themselves out of place after the war that lasted for a century. In a way, it is metaphoric for what Azula is going through. She hides it well but Azula is still struggling to fit in.

Ty Lee leans closer to the Princess, smiling brightly. "I heard there is an ice skating rink this year, like they do in North Pole."

"Is that a date then?" Azula's playful tone makes Ty Lee's already palpitating heart suddenly flutter.

"You bet it is!" In her excitement, Ty Lee does not give Azula time to dodge her quick kiss on the lips.

….

.

Of course, things are downright awkward, uncomfortable after that.

Ty Lee wants to slap, kick, bury herself for being so impulsive, thoughtless and just about the most stupid person in whole wild world. When the ship docks, Azula is onto business like the overwhelming silence after the kiss did not happen at all. She takes the bigger room briskly and goes on and on about how many individual meetings would she be having with the Earth King she once imprisoned. "He would probably pee his pants." Ty Lee remarks, trying to lighten things up. But she could tell, despite the erratic pace of Azula's many worries that this does not really concern her much.

Ty Lee stands with Azula on the first day as the world leaders debated about trade routes and criminality like they pretty much do every year. There is the inherent air of distrust as the person that once took the world with her blue fire sits under the banner of Fire Nation. She has been the one stark reminder of the Hundred Year War that enslaved two nations and killed the last one. Daughter of Ozai. The Conqueror of impenetrable Ba Sing Se.

But an hour on the various agreements and the occasional glares, it is made pretty clear how Azula would make the difference this year. How they would remember her differently this time. How she would be able to help the world she once dreamed and almost succeeded taking, With her words that suggested the best plan, provided the ultimate solutions, Azula gives them a new way to remember the Conqueror of Ba Sing Se.

"Do you think that would work?" King Kuei looks at her with undisguised admiration. Almost appreciation. Ty Lee feels her joints tense at the intense look the monarch is giving her princess. She has to watch out for him.

"Of course, I am." The confidence in her tone makes the Dai Li beside Kuei imperceptibly shift.

"I always knew it would be great if we have the Princess on our side." Predictably, King Bumi is the one who gets along with Azula first. The frank pronouncement is met with quiet, reluctant sounds of agreement. Katara and Sokka look at each other. The Avatar grins exultantly.

Being a representative comes easily with Azula.

Just like everything else.

…

.

The two of them somehow manage to take a much needed break on the third day and by that time, Azula has run out of reasons to postpone their date to the iceskating rink.

"This is a date." She drags her princess towards the clearing, the rented equipment on one hand. Azula feels heavy, their interconnected hands seemingly being separated by Azula's stubbornness and the gravity of their unresolved issues. But Ty Lee is just as relentless and tenacious and insolent and every word that Azula could use to describe her and she just pulls her harder.

"Ty Lee—"

She pushes the skates to her chest. "If you are not really sure how to do it, do not worry. I did this once before. It is just balance."

"I mean…" Azula lowers her head but accepts the red skating-shoes nevertheless. "You do not need to do this.'

"Do what?"

"Try so hard." Her voice is a little firmer now. She frowns. "Why can't you just move on?"

"Because we are not over until you move on too." Their hands still intertwined, Ty Lee raises both to her lips. She kisses each one, closes her eyes. "It's like ice skating. You will surely be unsteady at first. You will surely fall at first. We are like, in that rink now. The two of us."

One hand on her cheek, Ty Lee places her forehead on Azula's warm own. She then runs her lips on dark hair, squeezes the rigid hand. "But I will not let go of your hand. Never. Not again."

Lips. She feels it tremble, then slowly respond. Ty Lee breaks away for a second and whispers.

"No matter how hard you try to run away." She kisses her once more.

….

.

"Ice Skating is not an apt reference, it seems."

The first time Azula glides through her metal shoes, she does not fall and is no way unsteady. Balance. As if that little thing would ever be a challenge. This is the one thing that Azula has never forgotten. She is simply a genius born, unprecedented and exceptional. Ty Lee stares dumbly as the girl spins, runs and even dance around the rink with the effortless grace of a professional. "It does not seem like I need to hold your hand after all." She mutters, now pouting in comical defeat.

But her hands are seized and Azula turns her head away as she pulls Ty Lee towards the center.

"I kind of want to anyway."

Ty Lee knows then, that this would be the new beginning she has always been mooning about.

"I always knew you would come around. You loved me. You always did, hm."

"Don't flatter yourself." But Ty Lee can hear the soft laughter in Azula's voice.

 **(END of PART TWO)**

 **Fun fact: Somewhere in my desktop, there is another story that makes use of these awesome prompts. Fluffy, Republic City steamroller stuff tentatively called: "How Not to Be Friends with Azula" Ice Skating was my favourite in that one. In this, I guess I like Hooks the most (mostly because I have an author-crush on Mai).**

 **The last two chapters would be the epilogue, featuring a timeskip and some hints on how Ty Lee and Azula's relationship has improved. Thanks for coming this far anyway. It is pretty risky but I guess I enjoyed the spree posting feeling. I hope you guys enjoyed reading it just as much :D I understand how the email alerts could be quite annoying. XD**


	23. Ribbons

**Two-part epilogue ahead.**

 **.**

 **.**

 **Epilogue**

 **.**

 **.**

 **023 Ribbons**

"You will answer directly to me from now on. As head of security, it is your responsibility to give me weekly reports about the affairs around the nation and alert me if there is anything major to be worried about. As the Fire Lord's adviser, I will oversee any decision that must be made for the betterment of our military and international relations. Anything that you deem necessary must go through me first."

"Got it. Anything else, Azula?"

The woman in question raises her head, casually leaning back to her swivel seat as Fire Nation's Head of Security, Ty Lee waits for an elaboration. "This would also mean that you are my right hand-man—"

"Woman, you mean."

"Fine… _woman._ That you must promise to keep an eye on my back and protect it from any threat inside or outside the Fire Nation."

"That's a given." Her girlfriend of two years points out, looking offended. Those puppy eyes once more. Thankfully, it does not work as well as when they were fourteen and stupid. "You do not need to tell me that." She crosses her arms.

"I also intend to add that it is your utmost responsibility as the Commander-in-Chief. You must always be behind me back and that you are free to stab me in the back if in case I ever stray from the path."

"Say, if you go… er, crazy once more."

"Yes."

"Morbid." Ty Lee quips and bursts into a hearty laughter.

"Indeed." Azula did not really mean it to be a joke but she chuckles softly anyway.

….

.

The last time Azula sees Ozai, he is in his deathbed. She is twenty-five, with a steady girlfriend she somehow managed to hold for two. They would get married this spring, a new tomorrow Ty Lee says. Winter has always been hard for her and though it did not snow in the past years, it does seem that Azula would lose someone important to her again.

She is subdued, calm and quiet when she asks him the question that has burned her all this time. "Why didn't you let me kill you?" Because he had nothing to look forward to, nothing to live for. Azula had been willing to risk the same fate, if it meant helping her father get away from the hell that was his sanction. She had been haunted by his bloodshot eyes, his gaunt figure. She had loved him, like any daughter should. She had wished the best for him, even though he probably did not want it.

Deteriorated since his incarceration, Ozai's bony hand felt like the reality of who she was, of the Azula she had left behind. Ozai had been the one stain of her past as the conqueror, the war machine, the monster. And it does seem that it would go away soon, like everything else about the Azula the world once feared. She is unsure, torn on how to feel about that. Death forces honesty to come into surface and when her dying father speaks, Azula knows it is the pure, unvarnished truth.

Something, she knows now, she never heard from the man she once adored.

'I just want to see my daughter…"

Coughing. His eyes are closed.

"… I just want to see my daughter become the strongest once again."

And he is gone.

The nurse tells her that it is the most peaceful she has ever seen him since he fell ill.

…

.

She cuts the ribbon—pink, due to someone's persistence- and the multitude of colors cheer. Republic City is alive and festive with the crowd it drew. The opening of the Power Plant is monumental, a big step for all the nations. Fire Nation has brought industrialization to the world indeed. Azula thinks that even if she would not really enjoy watching it burn, she would at least like to see it glow.

"How does it feel to be the most powerful woman in the world?" Ty Lee takes command for the night, hands touching the buttons of her robe. Her lips trail fire on her cheeks, hands cupping her breasts. "Again."

"Exhilarating." She struggles to breath, meeting the mischievous mouth with a sweet, searing kiss. "And kind of boring when I have to be parted from my bed for some time." Being the Fire Nation Ambassador for Foreign Affairs and United Republic of Nation's newly elected councilwoman require her to be away from home three seasons a year. Ty Lee, despite her own demanding duties visits from time to time and even forced her to redecorate her apartment.

Politically, she is indeed the most powerful woman in the world. Her say is the word of law. In the first few months, it surprised her how the leaders are all too willing to take her advice like she was not Princess Azula who brought down fortresses with her sharp, well-timed words. As though they do not remember that.

"Awww. Admit it, you miss your Ty Lee too."

"Do not flatter yourself." Azula scoffs. "I consider it mostly as a dayoff."

Ty Lee playfully slaps her arm, then pulls her close once again.

She kisses her nose, her cheeks then finally falls and lingers on her lips. "I miss you." She whispers. Then another peck. 'Would you be staying here for winter?"

"Yeah."

Azula cups her cheek.

"I need to someone to hold my hand in the ice rink."

…

.

She commemorates the anniversary of her friend's deaths with yellow ribbons tied around Hanabi, in every oak tree that they once camped in as bandits. In every door they once knocked to whenever they hand their earnings around. Riko, Sakura and Kazumi would forever be remembered as the heroes who saved the Fire Lord three years ago, whose bravery prompted the government to free the town from the bullies that took it over for years. Azula prefers them to be remembered that way. Azula prefers to remember that way.

All throughout the day, Ty Lee holds her hand.

She squeezes back.

Because once a year, even the strongest falls down.

And the stronger one is the one helping her stand all through it.

…

.

The next time Azula makes Ty Lee cry, it is tears of joy.

They tie the knot that spring, a modest royal family wedding that they keep marveling to be historical and the first in its own kind. That Zuko rushing around to make sure their union would not meet any issues with the Fire Sages is odd. that two girls getting married and promising eternity with each other is the most unusual thing to have happened since the Avatar broke out of his iceberg.

Love meets no boundaries. And perhaps it is fate or just damn good timing. But it Is Azula and Ty Lee who exchange vows before the priest, who hold each other afterwards and who starts the trend that would persist for the coming decades, when two young girls could also express their love through intertwined hands and find a new way to remember the things they once agonized the most.

Riko…

Sakura…

Azula and Ty Lee seal the deal with a kiss that the whole world would remember.

 _I am finally free._


	24. Bedtime Stories

**024 Bedtime Stories**

The world finds a new way to remember Princess Azula of the Fire Nation.

Gone is the conqueror of Ba Sing Se. The one who had been Fire Lord for a day. The one who sat on her father's left, with ambitions of crushing hopes and burning down entire continents. In her place, the world would remember Princess Azula as the hero of the Fire Nation, the one who freed it from its own downfall. The trainer of the lightning benders who would later give bright light to the world. Princess Azula is now known to be the best firebender in the world, better than her brother. Princess Azula is now loved, and not feared.

And throughout it all, it is Ty Lee who holds her hand.

In her heart, she keeps the memories of the exuberant Riko, the taciturn Sakura, even the apathetic Kazumi and the Azula that had been wrong, that had hurt herself the most above everyone.

And everyday, she thanks them too.

…

.

"Do you think Kazumi would be a good name for her?"

The little girl who stopped wailing as soon as she was cradled in Azula's arms, crooned as though in approval. Mai and Zuko's daughter was born at the end of winter, at the end of the anniversary Azula still dreads to this day. She had drawn the baby closer, breathed in. Kazumi. Beauty. It was a fitting name for such a beautiful creature. Azula whispered something into the infant's ears, traced her nose on the small head and she must have imagined it, but Ty Lee was sure that her niece smiled.

"I do not think we should go for that." Azula had said aloud, the tone in her voice startling Ty Lee. There was that certain smile in it, the one she remembered from the days when Kazumi thanked her for trying to bring the three of them back together. She sounded happy. Azula sounded happy. She raised the infant slightly up in the air. "Kazumi is a memory. The past. But this one. This girl. This is a new beginning."

Ty Lee leaned closer, put her chin on her girlfriend's shoulder as she wrapped her arms around her form. Azula pressed her lips on her cheeks and continued. "How about we name her after the spring that is coming? How about Izumi?"

"Fire Lord Izumi does not sound too bad, isn't it?"

….

.

Princess Izumi, a precocious child of four, leaps into her Aunt's arms. "Would you stay for a looong time?" the young monarch inquires, eyes sparkling with such innocent glee, such open admiration. Her arms lazily wrapped around the excitable princess, the older princess smirks.

"I guess I would. Do you want to see your gifts Izumi?"

"Duh!" Their niece huffs, breaking away with a sharp grin. "Of course!"

Azula brandishes something that makes Ty Lee laugh out loud and Izumi grumble in frustration.

"What?" Azula is clearly confused. Her eyebrows are raised in askance, eyes drawn on Ty Lee who cannot resist giggling at her wife's expense. "Seriously?"

"It's a doll, Auntie."

"So?" Azula retorts, inspecting her present. "It's the new Republic City fashion."

She had been exceptional indeed, this one. In a few years, Azula would be Izumi's firebending teacher, her master in more fields than one. In the future, she would be her adviser, the words of wisdom that came with experience. But for now, Auntie Azula is that dear, eccentric but pretty cool aunt who seems to be always away and yet never forgets to visit on her birthday.

….

.

New beginning means several things for them. But in a gist, Azula and Ty Lee just try to make new memories and new ways to remember old ones because life could just easily be taken away and if they start regretting things again, they would never move forward.

They lie each night that they are together for the end of this year's winter, under the fur blankets. Azula has already tied ribbons, has already whispered how her year had been in the heavens that never failed to listen. They would wake up drenched in sweat. They would probably wake up uncomfortable after being tied around each other so much. But Ty Lee loves Azula's warmth better than her coldness and she is willing to take everything, if it means she could stay.

With her.

Forever.

"Tell me about it again…" she whispers, inching impossibly closer, combing her fingers to the slightly damp hair. "Tell me, Azula."

"That bedtime story, once more?" Amused. Azula shifts nearer and Ty Lee welcomes it.

"I'd never get tired of hearing it."

Because each time it gets better and better.

If embellishments and sugar coating is what it takes for Azula to remember things differently, then so be it. The past, it has become who they are. The past, however painful made Azula the person that Ty Lee would willingly go to hell with. The past is what makes the future certain, what makes Ty Lee sure that she would never have to betray her ever again.

Azula is smiling and the words come out automatically. "Kazumi's life started at sixteen…."

 **(END)**

 **Merry Christmas, everyone. I hope you enjoyed it. I did. it is always fun to see any story end, especially one that just came out of nowhere. I would like to thank those pips who took the time to read and review. I did not really expect much but it is nice to see that some people do like it enough to say hi. It is one of my very introspective works so far and it is fulfilling to see it end happily since I had been pretty cruel with my other works.**

 **I would take a much needed break from this fandom so enjoy your holidays Tyzula fans (was it already established what we are supposed to be called?) and am looking forward to what you have in store in spring.**


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